Happiness Schmappiness

WordPress Daily Post: Premature

Happiness is a false goddess, unworthy of worship of any kind. The wise ancient Hindu teachers knew this, and warned that “The wise man hankers not after happiness.” Our American founding fathers were not as astute.

The middle name of Happiness is Fortune, and that reveals a truer aspect of her gift. If we are among the lucky, or rather WHEN we are among the lucky, we can experience happiness.

The very word HAPPINESS (note the similarity to HAPPEN???) expresses her fickle, random and uncontrollable nature. Maybe you randomly received good blood chemistry, but you probably believe you are happy because you “make the choice” to be happy, and “work to be happy,” or you have “good mental and emotional hygiene.”

That’s BS. It rings very hollow to anyone who either doesn’t have the blessings of cheerfulness hormones in their bloodstream, or is a thoughtful person. We all like to take credit when things go our way, and blame others for their personal ineptitude when they experience failures. We rarely give credit to our environment when things go well, and take personal responsibility for our failures. This is because most people are unaware of their susceptibility to “The Fundamental Attribution Error,” or as David Levy says we are prone to “Underestimating the Impact of External Influences.”

Some of the quotes he picked to illustrate this hardwired error in the human thought processes include:

“No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.” (unknown)

“Don’t call a man honest just because he never had the chance to steal.” (Yiddish Proverb)

“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.”

This last quote, attributed to Barry Switzer, gets at my point above.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for meditation and stopping the negative self-talk. Peace has now surrounded me, despite often severe or profound “reasons” to feel shaken and anxious. No, I have not escaped the human condition, and still feel anxious much of the time, especially when I am alone and slip into ruminating on my past, and the potential consequences on the future. I am at peace because I know that “I” am not the body, or even my mind or my history or memories. “I” am the one who watches the one who gets manipulated, by events and circumstances, into doing what has to be done to play the role “I” have been assigned to play in society.

Even if I have not been able to completely control my mind, and completely and permanently identify with “the witness,” (the one who watches my “self” go through life), I am not going to conflate peace of mind with happiness.

True happiness can only come when all are happy. Someone asked me “Don’t you want her to be happy?” My first (grouchy) thought was “I don’t give a rat’s ass.” (I said nothing.) My second (wiser) thought was “Of course I want her to be happy. I want everyone to be happy”

And so, like the Buddhists, I pray: May all beings be happy.

Furthermore, and much more importantly, like the Buddhists, I pray: May all beings have the causes of happiness.

As Lynn Sparrow Christie noted in a seminar I attended a few weeks ago, there’s the “problem of the food chain.”

When God, Mother Nature, The-Forces-Of-The-Universe see fit to have us all evolve past the food chain, all beings may have the foundation for the causes of happiness. We will no longer have to worry about maintaining the physical aspects of the carcass that carries the nucleus of the spiritual being within. We’ll have time and leisure to enjoy true happiness, not simple gratitude for what we have.

I’m not holding my breath.

PS Why does substituting SHM for H at the beginning of Happiness change it from the most desirable of emotions to a worthless mirage?

Maybe it’s the SHM sound at the beginning of the Yiddish “Schmutz,” or dirt.

That’s the dirt on happiness!

May all beings have the causes of happiness!