A Happiness Manifesto

I'm joining up with Kwizgiver this month for some of the questions she's doing daily.

Today's prompt is to write a happiness manifesto.

Before I started on this, I looked up manifesto (a big, long statement), and happiness.

Most of the sites on happiness conclude that doing is key to happiness. Little is said about simply being. Since we are human beings, not human doings, I consider this to be a greatly overlooked area, and indicative of where we are culturally. If people aren't constantly doing something (that someone else considers important), then there is little justification for their existence.

I don't think a person has to be doing something all the time to justify living. Besides, most of the sites are touting personal accomplishments, not contributions to the general societal welfare, as the necessary requirement for happiness, although doing stuff for other people allegedly is a great contributor to happiness.

Some of the sites move on into law of attraction theory, which is something I find relatively abhorrent. I do think in some instances like begets like, but when one takes that theory to the point where an airplane crashes because everyone on board has a secret death wish, so they were all attracted to this particular flight, I consider this theory one of collections of thoughts that has gone off the rails. Sure, people who like to bowl are going to find one another in a bowling alley. But life is full of randomness, and that needs to be accounted for.

Happiness is not something I aim for, anyway. I aim for content and enough. We have enough, and I am generally content, if not a little unsettled because I haven't any specificity that I feel pushed toward by society. I have already done my time contributing to society - I worked up until I couldn't, I volunteered for multiple organizations, I have donated to charities and supported worthy causes. I have done and the time for doing is over. I'm content simply being, and if I do some things with whatever remains of my life, that's ok, too.

So how does one find this content? Let's take a look.

I have found that it not the vacations that are the big deal in our life. It's the everyday stuff that matters the most. Getting the laundry done, making meals, doing the dishes. Looking out the window. Holding hands with my husband when we are watching TV matters more to me than most anything else.

One key to contentment that I am not well versed in is self-care. Taking care of one's self, physically and mentally, is necessary and important to wellbeing. Exercising, eating well, reading and learning, and physical touch are simple yet key elements of living a good life. This is a lesson I wish I had conquered when I was much younger; it's easier to keep a body healthy than to take one that's about used up and make it stronger. It's not impossible, but it is harder. Sometimes things are hard, but with time it gets easier.

So, feeling well helps with the happiness/content quotient. If the body habitus is unhealthy, it's hard to focus. Not impossible, but it makes things more difficult, and difficult things become a slog sometimes. Slogs do not lead to contentment; that way frequently leads to frustration. 

Sometimes, though, one must slog to find the contentment at the end.

Acceptance is another key to contentment. It is easy to rage against the night, but accepting the darkness sometimes leads to much better sleep. Maybe things aren't going so well at various times; there's not enough time, not enough money, health isn't good, whatever. Sometimes we have to accept these limitations - this year, we won't take a vacation. This year, I won't write a novel. This year, I will deal with chronic pain. The key is not to become the obstacle. For example, I am not chronic pain (even though it feels like it some days). I accept that I have chronic pain and that has limited me. I am accepting those limitations and learning to live a good life within them. That's not an easy thing to do, but I think acceptance of life's myriad of circumstances is needed if one is to be content. Or happy.

Contentment and happiness are personal things, but many people think they should judge others based on their perceptions of what happiness is. If a person is happy working on a railroad, who am I to judge? If another is happy playing golf, what difference does it make to me? I mind my own business and find this is another key to happiness. Not worrying about what others think is huge when it comes to finding contentment. If others judge, that's on them.

Having said all that, I have never thought of myself as one of those marvelously happy people that one occasionally runs across. I've had too difficult a life for that.

But I am ok with being content.