During my divorce, I spoke at great lengths and for an extended period of time about a multitude of concepts; some esoteric, some more familiar with a close confidant. One area that our discussions gravitated to on multiple occasions was the topic of happiness. In fact one statement was made to me rhetorically, "You know Joe, maybe this whole happiness thing is totally overblown."
Is it wrong to focus on the attainment of personal happiness, assuming we know what that happiness is and would recognize it when we had it? Is it possible, or even healthy to focus exclusively on the happiness of others above or at the exclusion of our own self-focused happiness?
We have all heard the oft-quoted aphorism "We are responsible for our own happiness." We are certainly responsible for it, regardless of our circumstances and how we arrived in our station in life. The question is whether our focus in life, at least one focus, should be on our happiness, or perhaps instead on others' happiness, or maybe something else entirely.
I thought I had solved this when I considered how "joy" differs from "happiness" or how I thought it did. Joy seemed to take on a "higher" standing than happiness as I perceived it. Joy, as an emotion, seemed to embody an element of selflessness and even self-sacrifice, if necessary, to put the happiness of others beyond our own. It seemed that the replacement of "short term happiness" with emotions and feelings of gratitude, actions of service to others and thoughts of concern for the well-being of others "outranked" simple personal happiness.
Joy and personal happiness, at least then, in a sense, felt like mutually exclusive concepts. It wasn't that personal happiness felt foreign or even guilt-inducing but that what seemed like the never-ending "search" for happiness pushed concern for others often to a secondary level of importance.
This is never more evident than the social awareness surrounding single adults. Discussions concerning relationships invariably result in an analysis of what it is "we" want in a relationship; what characteristics of a the "perfect" mate are on our "list". This was the source of my conflict.
I am left feeling somewhat "selfish" for wanting on one hand to be happy, but yet KNOWING that my happiness is truly dependent upon my gaze being turned outward. How though, did I come to this realization? Sure. We are told to think of others first, in all we do. We all know that this is not always an easy thing to do. We know what it feels like to experience love and the happiness it evokes. We crave it. It is a healthy thing to experience.
I came to understand what it is like to experience the joy (and happiness) in the happiness of others; the happiness of others that is experienced by those whom we have had strong feelings of friendship with and for and even those with whom we have felt, if not always love, perhaps feelings of love. It is an awakening to not have thoughts of "What about me?" be the first thing we think about when we see the happiness of others.
Joy and happiness are not mutually exclusive concepts. Attempting to "experience" the happiness of others without reflection on our "state of happiness" does bring joy, IF we allow it. And when we do, that joy we experience does result in personal happiness. But the reason that we experience true happiness for the joy and happiness of others wasn't clear to me till recently.
It is the accepting of our happiness for others, BY OTHERS, as one accepts a gift, freely given, that through a process I don't fully understand, frees us from the constraints of our humanness to rely on what we get to generate true happiness. It is our connection with those we care about that acts as a conduit. When we are truly happy for someone (and it can not faked), we have, in a sense, given that person "permission" or perhaps more understandably said, given our "blessing" for their happiness. It is their acceptance of that gift that does NOT let them go in their happiness, but cements a bond between us; a true altruistic connection.
