One of the questions I like to ask people is what makes them happy. It gets interesting when I get "I don't know" back as an answer. "What is happiness, how do you define it?" And finally - why did I even bring it up? Being challenged to explain why I'm asking about happiness brought more clarity to my own thoughts as well.
I guess I am especially interested in happiness these days - the reason being that I have been through three years of harrasment from my employer. After the first two years, my body gave me a clear signal that I could not go back to work. I have been on sick leave the last year, working on pulling myself out of depression and get back to being healthy and able to work again, even though the harrassment continued for another year while I was on sick leave.
In this journey, I have studied a lot of human psychology - I think there is some truth in the idea that the people who become psychologists and psychiatrists are people who have had to work themselves through difficult mental issues themselves. Because in essence ... I never judge anyone for their behaviour, and I am a very liberal person. But at some point, thought patterns can take such grasp in you that it becomes an obstacle in life. So great an obstacle, that life just runs away. Recognizing this, I found that I needed to pull myself out of it, so that I could have a normal life again. (Not that I have ever had a NORMAL life.)
For example, my depression consisted of certain thought patterns about how others view me and how I view myself. With those thought patterns, everything I experience will be processed by my thought pattern in such a way that the ideas that are hurting me become stronger, while ideas that would prove me wrong were ignored. Indeed, when you have a strong filter on, you can hear people say or read something which is not there. The mind can actually substitute words right in front of you, so that it reads something completely different than what has physically been written. You have to read it 4-5 times very carefully to find out. Which means that I can not trust my own experience when i am in that condition.
So to find the way out of it, I have to become an expert of my own mind. And from this comes practice. What practice does one use to become more mentally stable and, preferably, live a happy life? Or as Buddha would say - live a life without suffering? From all my religious studies, I have come to the conclusion that all religions in the world have that same goal, but have only slightly different explanations around the concepts and slightly different practices.
All the disagreements about the different roles of the different people in holy scriptures, whether one should be baptized as a baby or adult, which direction to pray, etc - it is of lesser importance, because what is important is your own relation to God and honoring God's creation. What is important is gratitude to God for the experience that He has granted us. With real, heart felt gratitude also follows happiness and a loss of suffering. And all the different religious practices seem to be different ways of achieving the feeling of gratitude.
But that's my interpretation. And I am open to - and even curious about other people's views, because I feel this enriches my experience. It is also a way of experiencing gratitude. I am grateful that I get to write to you and read your words. I am grateful that I have a chance to learn about you and your thoughts about happiness.
I have learned that in Russia, it is expected from people that they should not smile in public, especially if you are at work, and especially not smile when strangers are looking. That is only about the smile, however. Their point is that if I go to a café, I should have no reason to smile to the waitress, and she has no reason to smile to me - simply because we are strangers. It is a strictly professional business relation. We don't know each other. Why should we smile and express happiness?
But what is a valid reason to smile, then? I'm grateful that I'm able to sit in a café! I'm grateful that I get a really good cup of coffee or tea or hot chocolate! I'm grateful that I get to sit there and enjoy life! I'm greateful that the waitress is taking my order. I'm grateful that I get to pay the waitress for my coffee. I'm grateful that I'm helping the waitress by being one of the many customers who pay her salary, so that she can have a place to live and food to eat and have her children grow up if she has any. I'm grateful that I can have this experience in these lovely surroundings and just for a moment be part of someone else's experience, even when I'm only the customer who received a cup of coffee. And the fact that I receive all of these things in my experience that God gave me - it is such a wonderful gift. It makes me feel blessed and happy. And I want to show my gratitude also to the waitress' part of this experience, and the most immediate way of doing this is to smile. (And leave a big tip when I go.)
My smile is a genuine smile of happiness, and I smile to you because I am grateful. My tip is my offering - which explains the idea of sacrificing animals and humans to God. It is only with thousands of years of reflection that we understand that a human sacrifice to God is as meaningless as my cat's offering of newly caught bird or mouse in gratitude of me giving him a home.
That was a lot longer than I thought of writing, but it also helps me understand. I am therefore grateful for your question and letting me answer it. It challenged me, and I'm learned also from this. So this made me happy.
What are your thoughts on happiness? Add in the comment section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment