Happiness

Happiness.

Everything we do as humans is influenced by this emotional state. People look for, and act to achieve each person’s individual concept of happiness. I believe it to be the most sincere and fickle of any of emotion I've ever felt. It's influenced by everything and is ever-changing for most of our lives. I could go on about virtue ethics. The idea that an action is good if it maximises happiness, and vice versa. Or I could list the different things which make me happy. Or I could do neither. The best advice I could ever give myself is to hold on to the joy I take from small things. It's the random acts of kindness which have the power to transform someone's mood from foul to fantastic. It's when someone notices that you're unhappy, and you allow yourself to be vulnerable, and you're accepted for your vulnerabilities and your shortcomings.

I don't think I've ever experienced something so rare as that last one. Happiness is something which I only seem to experience in its most fickle and fleeting of forms. It usually happens with 'today started well, then x happened.' That's something which I have had to face. I control my happiness, I control my moods. Even as I type that I realise it is a futile state. Humans are a race which require social interaction. It's like The Sims. If you don't fulfill the character/avatar's needs, they become sad and depressed. But then how much of a person's needs are in the persons control?

If I'm hungry, I can go and eat. If I'm tired, I can sleep. If I'm sad, I can listen to music, or I can socialise, or I can play a game. Those are all external things though. I use the music, the other people, the game. I use them to make me feel happier. So, what happens when they stop? What happens when you lose the stimuli which you once used so successfully to illicit feelings of genuine happiness? When you can't find any new stimuli? Can you force yourself into being happy? You can't. You wear a mask. When you're the bright spark in the classroom, the unfaltering source of entertainment and comfort, losing the spark is the most terrifying feeling in the world. Losing your happiness means the spark tries to hide. So, you bring out a candle to give the illusion that it's still there. You still burn, just a little less brightly, a little less vividly.

It's a vicious circle. The veil of happiness that you try and disguise yourself limits you incredibly. You lose the chance to allow yourself the freedom that being vulnerable brings. Yes, I said that vulnerability is a freedom and I seriously consider it to be just that. Once you accept that you can't control everything, once you admit that you can't control your happiness, you open the way for other people to either hurt you or help you. The problem lies in the difficulty with admitting that you're unhappy. Because the overwhelming senses that you're encountering drive you towards the idea that people won't understand, that you're the only one who isn't happy, that people need you to be happy or else they won't like you. If they don't like you, you'll lose them. Once you lose them, once the social aspect of you is gone, all that's left is you. You is a lonely thing. You is used to single you out. You is an isolation. You can't help yourself. You need someone else to help you. But you have driven them away with your unhappiness. You is a lonely thing.

Then we have the other option. The one where admitting that you need help and that you cannot control your happiness leads to people rallying around you and making you strong again. People being there for you just like you've been there for them. People asking how you are. People making sure that they spend time with you, people who provide the stimulus you need to genuinely smile again. You isn't a lonely thing in this scenario. You is used to highlight you, not single you out. You don't need to help youself on your own, I will help you. You is inclusion. You and I are closer now, and I will be there to help you again, the same way you helped me. You isn't a lonely thing anymore.

We put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We allow ourselves to be influenced by societies views on what should make us happy. We see the absence of something as unhappiness. We rely on material things to define our views on happiness. 'I won't be happy until I buy x.' We forget that one simple, 'How are you?' One selfless question has the power to rekindle a spark. Too often a person is defined as a solitary thing. But my happiness is influenced by everything. It's the weather, it's my friends, it's what I had for breakfast, it's what music I'm listening too, it's what book I'm reading, it's the last thing that you said to me. A person isn't a solitary thing. A person is... happiness. It's something which everyone shares and is wholly unique to everyone. It's something which changes, something which can elude someone for a long time. It's something which is noticeable, both when you lose it and when you find it. But it's always there. There is always that spark inside you, it won't ever go out, it just needs to find the right way to burst into life again. It's a simple question, asked every day, by billions of people, in hundreds of languages, with hundreds of different responses, each meaning different things. It's lied about constantly by millions of insecure teenagers, by people who don't understand how to bring the spark back.

How are you?