The Case for Happiness

“Yesterday's the past, tomorrow's the future, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.”

 Bil Keane quotes (American Artist creator of the comic strip "Family Circus" b.1922)

          Happiness is something we all crave. This state, condition, or emotion we designate as "happiness" is something that as individuals, we pursue. Remembering when Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," I delved into my own mind for what this pursuit meant to me. 

           As I was thinking about what happiness was, I began to go down this path. Essentially, I was "pursuing" happiness. I once heard that pursuing anything actually pushes it away. I understand this principle and saw it as something to be debated. Philosophically, pursuing something is equivocal to "chasing" something. When someone chases something, an element of desperation emerges. From this perspective, then, "pursuing" happiness means that one is pushing it away. 

          However, if you're not happy, then how would you become happy? In order to become happy, or "be" happy, one has to not "be" happy in the first place. Someone who is unhappy would have to become happy, do something to "be" happy, or "understand" that happiness is a state that is always available. In this instance, happiness is something to become, or "be" and one would have to "do" something in order to "be" happy. Right? 

          Can a person just zap themselves into happiness? 

          Can someone just happy, or does someone have to "do" happy in order to "be" happy? 

          In my Happiness Meditations, we sort of answer this. We "do" happy through laughter exercises and playing games to stimulate and enter into the physiology of happiness. By incorporating mindful meditation, those who've attended the Happiness Meditations feel the feelings of happiness and discern where we can use more happiness. Understanding this new perspective allows us to bring about happiness in situations in life where one would need it most. By "doing" the process of happiness, we become, or "be" happy. 

          This then begs the question, is happiness only a state? 

          Is happiness a behavior? 

          Although defining happiness may seem elusive and too abstract to encapsulate, the act of doing so actually answers "is happiness a momentary feeling, or is it a behavior?" Through the act of understanding what happiness means to you as an individual, you are attuning your mind to begin looking for answers. Seeking to define happiness allows you to open up to your own feelings of happiness, thereby creating a happiness "blueprint" for the behavior to follow. Unconsciously, you begin to "act" or "behave" happily in ways that you would think happy behavior looks like, sounds like, or feels like. 

          In doing so, Happiness is not just a feeling, not just a behavior, but a condition. 

          Congratulations on  having the condition of happiness.