Don’t you think it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while… than to be just okay for your whole life?
–Audrey Niffenegger/the Time Traveler’s Wife
It’s an important question, don’t you think? It’s a question that would determine a lot of things about how you live your life. Who you live with, what job you do, where you live, what sort of standard of living you have. Everything.
Or is the question really if happiness is something for the privileged people to worry about?
The cool thing is that we each have different things that make us happy. Some of us don’t even care about happiness in this life at all. Those of us who don’t believe in an afterlife think they are insane.
And then, is happiness what it’s all really about?
No, I’m not planning on answering any of these questions. Not right this minute. It’s not like I am any kind of expert on happiness, or anything really.
I do think I am very lucky to have had at least one time in my life when I was perfectly happy. A fairly short time. Months, not quite years. And many times when I am fairly happy. I laugh a lot even when I am unhappy overall.
Do I think that those brief, radiant times are better than a lifetime of being “just ok” though?
How would I even go about deciding something like that?
I know I wouldn’t trade that short time for anything, but in a way it also makes it harder. Maybe happiness like that sets a standard that can’t be maintained. Maybe not even matched.
Maybe what is important isn’t happiness so much as serenity.
Maybe this is such a First World problem that it makes me cringe a bit just thinking about it.
Maybe I should just go to bed and try to sleep.
This could be the night it happens.
I’ve always been a good sleeper. I just need to get my sleeping groove back.
That. Would be happiness.