Seeking Happiness

Somedays I take a little more time than usual to think about the whys and wherefores of life... The last few days have been like that. Mostly I notice that people seem to equate the meaning of life with happiness. I could go with that. I'd take happiness. But darn it all, how to get there and stay there is a mystery to me.

Being a woman, with woman friends and sisters, I have had a lot of experience with moods. I am now almost 30 and am just starting to figure out that the world isn't really ending once a month, nor it is a realistic barometer of reality when I feel that everything is super fantastic... It's a mood. And as good as I sometimes feel, not only can I not use my mood as an indicator of how truly happy I am, more importantly since I am pretty lousy at controlling my moodiness/crankiness, I can't rely on moods or emotions to make me truly happy.

So how can I be happy? The kind of happiness that hormones and dirty dishes and sleepless nights can't destroy? Basically the problem is this:

1. We want to be happy.
2. We want to do what what gives us pleasure.
3. We think those things that we WANT to do will make us happy.
4. So we indulge in those things.
5. And we aren't happy.

I notice that drinking alcohol makes me happy sometimes. Yet I have not found the perfect serving or combination and usually overdo it and wake up the next morning decidedly UNhappy.
I notice I like to sleep in. Yet there seems to be no perfect amount of "sleeping in" time. If I am not up before my children, I pay for it. If somehow I get to stay in bed until 9 or get to take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon--totally indulging my desires for sleepingness--I usually have a headache and maybe even a sense of opportunity loss that pretty much axes "sleeping in" as the path to happiness. (This would be why laying on the couch all day doesn't make the cut, either).

Oh, I could go on and on.. Chocolate, interesting beverages, any food at all, talking on the phone, reading books, surfing the internet, watching movies--all areas where you can raise those "seratonin" levels that I hear about. But darn it, I want to be happy, and I think that indulging myself in the things I want to do will make it so... But that indulgence seems to be the greatest saboteur of happiness.

So why indulge? If I feel like crap afterward, I definitely did not reach my goal of being happy, unless momentary pleasure (even though repeated 100x over) = happiness for me.

Hmm.

Well, last summer I had about a month where I would get up every morning at 5 am to pray for an hour before getting the girls up to go to Mass. I got a super great feeling from doing that. I had a journal and could see so clearly how God was working in my life--and before long I had filled a journal and God had blessed me with some pretty awesome spiritual growth and joy in my house... But alas, after about a month, I was getting cranky (I don't do all that well with tired), and although for 7 years my husband had lamented marrying such a lazy bones, I did not get the proud approval I expected, instead I got grunts and side complaints about being awakened so early each morning.

The case study gets interesting when I look at how I responded: did I cut back to going to Mass once a week? Getting up at 6:30 or 7 and pray for a half hour? Nope, I had a severe case of pendulus swingus and began to drag myself out of bed shortly after my husband went to work at 8. WHAT?! a 3 hour swing?! Shouldn't 7 be a piece of cake after the pre-dawn madness?

Well it wasn't, and why? Because 7 in the morning is not glamorous. It is not early enough to be impressive. It is not indulging in anything. For me, getting up at 7 everday is simply discipline. It is moderation and discipline. Two of the key ingredients for being happy that I decidedly lack.

My husband has graciously (and not so graciously) offered at times to supplement my lack of discipline with some of his, and as much as he tries we have discovered that this also is NOT the key to marital bliss. While sometimes his high standards are helpful, what I really need is self-motivation and self-discipline.

So, what have I discovered through this lengthy search into the meaning of life and the true path to happiness? Happiness is HARD. It's not automatic, swinging from one whim to another and indulging passions. It is the result of knowing when to go for it and when to stop. It is exercising, but not too much. Praying daily, but not so much that other duties get left in the dust. It is playing like a kid with my kids, for a little while each day. Posting short, readable posts every few days instead of a book once a month. It is balance.

The best candidate for a pendulum is heavy, dead weight. But to achieve balance when being pushed and pulled takes muscle, discipline, and maturity. It takes a certain strength to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason. I've heard it said, "The saints are happier in their sufferings than all the heathens in their sinful pleasures." I have figured out for myself that going wherever my passions take me only leads me back to where I started: searching for happiness. But really, the happiness is only elusive because I have refused to work for it, to suffer for it. To find that happy, lasting equlibrium, I am going to have to really try. And with His grace, I just may get there.