I asked whether those kind of happy people were really happy, or whether they were hiding some inner pain. I would say the majority of my answers said they were truly happy, but maybe a quarter of the responses admitted to hiding pain. They offered a variety of excuses for using the appearance of happiness to hide pain.
I wasn’t sure what to conclude from this. One of the more positive people I know happens to be a rape and cancer survivor. I admire her for her attitude, and am a bit jealous.
I guess I think jealousy has a lot to do with it. She asks, rhetorically, why should she dwell on what happened? Why not do her best to make the most of now? Many folks living with cancer seem to have learned a similar lesson. For example, I originally wrote “folks with cancer” instead of “folks living with cancer.” That’s an example of one way they use to change their attitude towards having the disease.
Mindfullness practice also urges a similar thing: live in the now, not the past or the future.
Still, waking up each morning and smiling at yourself in the mirror? Each day writing down one thing you are grateful for? Listing accomplishments instead of failures? Deliberately provoking the “glass half full” approach?
I was recently (a year ago) diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At the time I was entering my first serious depressive phase. But even before that—all my life, I have had a mistrust of bubbly happiness. It just seems fake, and not just because there are so many things going wrong in the world, or my life.
I am grateful to be alive. I think it is the greatest gift possible. I wouldn’t be able to feel depressed if I weren’t alive. I choose depression over death, even though I often think about killing myself when I’m depressed. I know I’ll never do it, and that that kind of thinking and talking is more about warning myself and others that I am desperately unhappy, and please, please can’t someone help?
I was brought up to feel like I had to earn my happiness. I was brought up to believe that happiness is that distant goal, on the top of the mountains that you are allowed only a moment before death, if even then. I was brought up to believe that happiness is only for the few; true happiness, that is.
I have come to believe, I fear to say, that in some way, I like my unhappiness. It motivates me. It makes me think. It gives me attention. Maybe that attention is as artificial as the attention happy people get, but still, it’s attention, and I need it.
Hell, that’s why I fluther. I want validation. I want people to think I write well and think well (even if saying that invalidates every compliment I get from now on).
I also feel a lack of confidence. It seems like happiness leads to confidence, and I’ve used the aura of happiness to sell myself (for a job) and to sell ideas. It’s not fake, either. I truly believe the ideas I have and work for are good ones that will help people. I truly believe I can do a good job at this or that. Of course, will I? Hmmmmm.
So I have become a curious combination of confidence and insecurity. I’ll talk to anyone. Argue any point I believe in. At the same time, I’m wondering if I’m offending them, insulting them, or making them never want to talk to me again. That doesn’t stop me, though.
Happiness leavened with despair. My existential dilemma. Why do I keep on being unhappy? Is it because of the chemicals in my brain? Is it because I don’t know how to be happy? Is it because I choose not to be happy?
The first two possibilities let me off the hook. So I don’t like them. I want to be responsible for my own state of mind. But what if I’m not?
Composing members:
0
Composing members:
0
