Could I even be happy?

You ultimately create your own happiness. There’s no single person who could force you to be happy if you were dead-set on being miserable. Of course no one truly wants to be miserable, we might want parts of it, like having edgy humor or bad boy appeal but we all desire to be happy.

If you’re unhappy, does it mean you’re inherently unhappy? Or could you be happy? I’ve seen people submitting to their personal misery so much that they seem to have a resolve around knowing they won’t ever be happy. “It’s over.”

You can’t always make the choice to be happy, that’s why advising someone to be happy is stupid. Still, someone shouldn’t submit to their own personal misery, which, I think is the intention behind that advice. If we don’t even try to make it work, we are ending it before it began. You’ve made a choice to be unhappy, because you’re not even trying to change.

You have the choice to do more!

We have agency, we can choose to do things differently. If something isn’t working out, we can choose to change our approach. If someone is making you miserable, you can choose to stand up. We have so many choices and we are not at all aware of our own power. That’s a secret that’s hidden in well plain sight.

You always have a choice of your own reaction. If something bums you out, it’s not only because something bad happened, but also because of the choices you made and who you are. If you make a choice to be positive, to make effort and to carry on; those are choices you made. Of course, it’s only natural to feel bummed out, and there’s no escaping harsh realities. That doesn’t mean you have to let it linger. Don’t become addicted to your suffering.

If you feel like there’s no way back, and you’ve burnt all your bridges, it’s tempting to just submit and stew in your own stew of misfortune. Making yourself out to be the victim, and blaming your past self for making all the wrong choice. The thing is, people are insanely speedy and adaptable. We can thrive in the harshest of conditions.

The path to happiness starts with having agency, knowing you have a choice. If you believe you are helpless to change your situation, you won’t make any effort to change it. If you know you have a choice, and you can change how you, react to it or how you view it you will work towards it. Maybe you can even change the external reality that is making you unhappy. By having agency, you start to change your situation.

The harsh realities will bum you out

The harsh realities are impossible to escape. We’re always at the mercy of fate. We are one in entire civilizations, a human amongst lions and wolves, an animal at the mercy of diseases and natural disasters. There will always be suffering. You can’t be blind to the harsh realities. At the same time, if you make the right choices, you have a change at something. Something more, something meaningful. It’s all up to you.

There’s big problems with society that you cannot change. There’s objective aspects of reality you have no agency to affect. You cannot as one individual declare a war on the Law of Gravity. You have a reasonably dismal agency when up against the objective reality of the cosmos. You’ll be weighed down by worry and doubt and you will always be wanting what you can’t have. Reality is often, a bummer.

Modern living can be a real drag. There’s high expectation, and not a lot of goodies. We have more comfort than what’s healthy. We kind of get lost in the possibilities, knowing we want something but not sure what that is. We end up eternally searching for that one thing, even though it is never about that one thing. It’s only a projection of what’s inside us.

A divine comedy of modern living

The Joker with Joaquin Phoenix is a movie about someone who lives a life of tragedy and get’s pushed over the edge and has a delusional realization that it’s actually a life of comedy. You shouldn’t follow the example of The Joker, but there’s a sense of freedom from just laughing at everything. “Look at these stupid monkeys taking everything so serious.” There is a very real sense of humor that can only be found in deep unhappiness. The kind of humor only a mad man would relate to.

Imagine looking at society from the point of a view of some sort of god. Not the biblical God, but a more imperfect, human god like the pagans worshipped. I imagine it would be hysterical watching these upstanding monkeys acting like this mad and confusing world is somehow meant to be serious. It’s obvious it was created to be something playful.

No matter how low you get, and you will get low; you must always strive to be speedy and adaptable. There’s nothing the worlds like better than giving you a real difficult challenge, and if you’re too stuck in your ways, you won’t ever be up for the task. Let it be like a dance, not a war; not a tragedy, but a dance. You move and the world moves with you. Dance like no one’s watching!

Good luck!!

Photo credits:

Funny clown with makeup and costume on street with umbrella by Thgusstavo Santana, Pexels.com