I’ve been thinking about happiness a lot recently. It’s something that I tend to focus on more when life gets crazy, just by default. I think it’s because I worry that, if I’m too busy, I won’t have enough time to do the things that make me happy, and that I’m messing up my priorities by letting my obligations edge out the things I enjoy.
Life is crazy right now, hence my thinking about happiness more urgently than usual. Mostly it’s crazy in good ways: I’m helping a friend set up a workshop for a musical she wrote, another friend suggested that we start a Celtic band and I went into whirlwind mode finding people to join us (and now I’m trying to figure out what to do now that we’ve got people — being part of a band is a new experience for me, so I’m not quite sure what the next step is), a performance I was partially directing just wrapped up last Friday, and a new one might be in the works. Somewhere in there I’m supposed to be working on a novel. And then there’s APs (they start next week!), and studying for the ACT, which I’m taking in June, and the day-in day-out of homework and tests and other baseline tasks like keeping the Creative Writing Club from dying and doing my part in orchestra and choir to be prepared for the upcoming concert and studying Japanese.
You see, I like projects, I also like to create somewhat impossible goals (NaNoWriMo, anyone?), because I want to make sure that I’m living my life to the fullest. I want to experience as much as possible in my short time on Earth.This desire to plunge into life head-first has led to a lot of amazing experiences, true. But as you can see from the rambling paragraph above, it can also lead to a somewhat intimidating to-do list. I love everything I’m doing (even if only indirectly), and I’m unbelievably lucky to be able to say that. After all, I know a lot of people who can’t say that, so why should I be complaining? But let me tell you a secret:
It can get overwhelming.
It can get so paralyzingly overwhelming that I feel like I’m watching my entire life spin out of control. Like I’m trying my best, and that it’s not enough. That it will never be enough. And sometimes when I feel like I’m getting my footing, the universe pulls the rug out from under me, throwing me something that I forgot to plan for. I forgot that Creative Writing Club met that day. I forgot to write down that homework assignment. I slept through my alarm because I forgot that if I stay up until midnight, that’s almost 100% guaranteed to happen. It’s even worse because I know that I have no one to blame but myself. I signed up for these responsibilities. I said I could handle them. I want to be able to handle them. Heck, I want to be able to handle more.
And usually, I can handle all of it. It doesn’t feel like a burden because I love it. But when everything converges on me, and I suddenly feel like all of my goals and ideals and beloved projects are threatening to crush me with their weight, that’s when I turn back to the idea of happiness. That’s when I worry that I’m going in the wrong direction, because if what I’m doing isn’t immediately making me happy, then what the heck am I doing with my life? What am I doing, if I’m not happy? And what can I do to change that? And of course that question leads to the biggest question of all:
What makes me happy? Yup, that’s the biggest question that I ask myself. There’s a long list, ranging from clean laundry to looking at the stars to chocolate to waltzing and beyond. And often, when I’m busy, it seems like there isn’t time for all the little things that make me happy (except for clean laundry — that’s a happy constant). But I’ve realized something important recently. It’s something I think I’ve always intrinsically known, considering the way I’m always trying to start projects and pick up new skills, but I only realized the full implications of it a short time ago.
The main thing that makes me happy is accomplishing things. Yes, that may sound generic. And yet it’s true. When I see a show go up, or add another chapter to my novel, or master a song that once felt impossible, I feel so happy I could burst. I’m never prouder, or more confident, than when I realize that I can reach my goals. The amount of self-empowerment that comes from reaching those goals is simply unbelievable. The amount of happiness that comes from reaching those goals is astounding.
And yet, when I’m working to reach those goals, I often feel the way I detailed earlier: overwhelmed and somewhat helpless, blaming myself for everything I mess up. I forget that I’m not just working on a to-do list; I’m working towards the things that make me happiest. Being happy doesn’t just mean getting enough sleep, always being perfectly in control of my schedule and my life, and having enough time to get lost in a good book until midnight and beyond. True, those things make me very happy. But the things that I blame for making me feel overwhelmed, that shove those easier forms of happiness out of the way, and that make me occasionally question what I’m doing with my life — those are also a form of happiness, even if they don’t always look like it. And I’d like to argue that they’re the most important form of happiness for me.
I think the most important thing I’ve realized is this: when I worry about pushing my own happiness aside by trying to accomplish too much, I’m not making a mistake by trying to accomplish things. I’m making a mistake by how I define “happiness.” Yes, happiness is watching the stars and eating chocolate and getting enough sleep. But happiness is also all the little stepping stones to reaching my goals. Happiness is studying for the ACT (because how happy will I be when I get an acceptance letter from my top choice college?). Happiness is waking up early to go to choir (because how happy will I be when I can sing confidently at the concert?). Happiness is sitting myself down to work on my novel even when I don’t necessarily want to (because how happy will I be when I finally finish it?). Happiness is even studying for my next APUSH test (because how happy will I be if I finally get a perfect score?).
Because happiness is working without giving up. Happiness is determination.
Happiness is faith in the journey.
-Mara
P.S. So that was a rambling post, but if you understood what I was trying to get at, feel free to leave a comment! (Or write a post in reply, should you care to do so.) Do you agree with me? Disagree with me? And what’s your highest happiness? I want to start an open discussion on this, because I think it’s something universal that people think about, and I would like to hear your thoughts on it.
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