There are days when I occasionally wake up with a feeling of intense dread in the pit of my stomach, a large lump in my throat and an elephant-sized weight on my heart so heavy that I wonder whether I can make it out of bed. This thankfully happens much, much less than it used to, but it always seems to floor me mentally when it does. It was during one of those periods that one of those typical instagram posts caught my eye, telling me that “happiness is a choice”. Despite having heard the phrase before, it still went on to bring up a lot of uncomfortable emotions for me, a lovely little mix of guilt, anger, confusion. Surely I wasn’t choosing to feel this way … was I?
So I did what any normal person would do when they want other people’s perspectives on a situation. It’s the modern day humans’ alternative to googling their symptoms … I put out an instagram poll. The majority of people (63%) it turns out, think that happiness is not a choice, whereas 37% think it is. And from the discussions that came from this, it turns out that this is a much, much more complex answer than I had originally anticipated. It brought up questions such as what happiness actually is, the impact of external events, the influence of our thoughts, beliefs and actions. A couple of people mentioned Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, proposing that if basic needs such as food, security and belonging aren’t being met, it is going to be difficult to achieve any sort of happiness. On the other side of the coin, however, someone rightly brought up the fact that in poor countries, where a lot of these basic needs aren’t being met, they self report higher happiness levels than those of us in the developed world. So is it dependent on external events, or does it depend on the state of our inner world?
This point brings up a wealth of discussion but I think the basic idea is this: maybe we can’t choose happiness in itself, but we can choose to practice the things we know are good for us, which can ultimately lead to a higher level of happiness. For example, Positive Pyschology suggests that gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater levels of happiness, and maybe this can partly explain why those in poorer countries do report their levels of happiness so high – they appreciate what little they do have, yet we as a society have been taught to constantly strive for more. We live in a collective scarcity mindset, where what we have is never enough. We believe that the next promotion, meeting our soulmate, having our dream car, going on holidays, earning more money will make us happy, whereas in reality we adapt to these things pretty quickly, and our happiness levels quickly return to baseline. In other words, these things have time and time again been shown to have absolutely no impact on our happiness or wellbeing whatsoever. They are, however, great for our economy (apart from maybe meeting your soulmate).
I think a more important question we should be asking ourselves, is should we even be striving for happiness? Should happiness be our goal? I personally believe the answer to this is no. We all know being happy feels great, but I also think it feels sort of fleeting, superficial, devoid of much deeper meaning. Of course all our values are different but I am personally striving for deeper connections, more excitement, fun, passion, contentment, inner peace. I have been in the best place possible these past 3-4 months, but I have not necessarily felt a consistent sense of happiness – it’s been more of a deep realisation of my own worth, an internal stillness that is unaffected by the chaos of external events. It’s learning that I am stronger and louder than my inner critic and that I deserve to take up space in this world. It’s learning to question my thoughts rather than take them at face value and consistently and tirelessly working at cultivating self-acceptance rather than self hate. This is the vital inner work I choose to put my energy into, and if happiness is an occasional consequence of that I’m not going to argue. But would I be lucky enough able to do this without a therapist, without a comfortable home, without food in my belly, without a stable life? Probably not. Which brings it back to Maslow’s Hierarchy.
So let’s stop feeling guilty when we have those days where happiness isn’t a choice that even comes into the equation. On those days let’s stop scrolling through social media and comparing ourselves to everyone else’s highlight reel. Let’s stop telling ourselves that we just need to “think positive” because sometimes, this just feels like an impossible task, especially when there are absolutely devastating events occurring in every direction we turn. Instead of being obsessed with pursuing happiness, let’s learn to honour the whole spectrum of our emotions, because, like life, we are complex and messy and fighting against our feelings is always a losing battle. Let’s choose meaning and depth and living to our values over a desperate pursuit of a feeling that is fleeting and fluctuating. Life is rarely going to happen the way we dream it will, but we always have that choice of showing up for ourselves in a way that is kind and compassionate and filled with love. That is the choice I want to be making and I encourage you to too.
All my love,
Kirsty xoxo
The Kirsty Way 