Happiness : That which is sought

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Mark Twain wrote, “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”  Perhaps he’s right, but I hope not.

Some people want fame, fortune, the perfect job, the perfect house, or to be with the perfect person.  I want none of those things unless they contribute directly to my inner happiness.  I’m not talking the type of happiness you get hanging out with your bros on Friday night over beers.  I’m talking the happiness that is sustained the following Saturday morning.  The kind that tells you, “Yeah, everything is right in the world and I’m feeling completely fine.”

Maybe this sounds simple, and it is.  Perhaps a definition is in order.  I’m talking about complete inner contentment that is not disturbed, at least not easily, by things in the outside world.  Satisfaction with my place in the world, and with me as just me.  The me without any elaborate embellishments or put-ons or masks.  For the better part of a decade I have been working towards this goal and while it sounds simple, it has been anything but that for me.

So along comes this girl with a bright buoyant smile, a devil-may-care attitude.  She’s rolling in late to the temp job we’re working, flouting these man-made abstracts called “time” with a slightest brush of the shoulder and flick of her hair.  She is living in a world of abundance, where everything will work out for her and in her favor.  Where I am coming from a land of scarcity, having to fight for every crumb of existence and work hard for my little piece of the pie.  Like the mountaineer, chiseling steps in the ice with my crampons, digging the ice axe into the crumbly mountainside looking for a proper purchase that will keep me steady.  One wrong step and it’s a*s-over-tea-kettle down the mountainside taking my roped in companions with me.  Headed towards a deep icy chasm of no return.

I thought I had met a Zen Master, a saint.  This person who was so full of life and undaunted by the troubles facing all of her fellow travelers.  It was all an illusion of course.  Her abundance came from knowing she had siblings and others who would bail her out, not understanding there were consequences to her actions.  Having a different concept of time altogether not related to what the rest of us experience.  She was the key player in a holographic universe of her own creation where everything and everyone were simply objects to be contended with.

So I hitched my wagon to this person thinking I found the answers to long-term happiness.  Finally, someone who gets it!  Living in the present moment, carefree since 2003 (and before).  Here’s a partner who can help me get to the “next level”, but then the floor fell out.  The illusion crumbled.  I was with someone who was able to disassociate from reality, not create a deep adaptive strategy to it.  I was with someone who acted like a literal child, not the mind of a child which mindfulness practice advocates.   She was cunning and knew that if she just kept quiet and withdrew there was a chance her version of the fantasy could continue.  She took Mark Twain’s words to heart, “Better to be quiet and let people think you’re a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” I was a fool.

I had put my chips “all in” on this one (as far as my attachment to another person) and “crapped out”.  Going from adding to my happiness to stripping it all completely away, stark naked without a speck of it now anywhere to be found.  How did this happen?

I didn’t foster true happiness, the one I spoke of in the beginning.  The one that comes from the inside and is not attached to things outside, and certainly not to people.  Does this mean I don’t want to be with people? Of course not.  I just cannot be dependent on them for my true happiness or anything material, really.  Actually, I have to take it further than that.  I want happiness not only for me but for everyone around me, otherwise how I can I be truly happy?  This even extends to strangers.  It goes further than that.  I can’t just maintain my happiness to be happy, I have to be sure not to take away someone else’s happiness or do things that knowingly impede their goals to be happy.  It would be impossible for me to maintain my inner happiness if the people around me are always angry or depressed or anxious, well maybe not impossible, but much more difficult. 

A long time ago I learned getting what you want doesn’t make you happy. I was taught this lesson yet again with my BPDex.  I got what I wanted, and worked hard for, a relationship with her.  It not only didn’t make me happy, it was a soul-crushing experience.

My long-term well-being then is most likely tied to having a good relationship with myself, caring for myself and that way I may have the most to give others around me.  I would like that more than anything to have enough inner happiness that a piece can be shared with others that could contribute to their own inner contentment.

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” — Mark Twain

[Ad Meliora]

Mark Twain wrote, “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”  Perhaps he’s right, but I hope not.

Some people want fame, fortune, the perfect job, the perfect house, or to be with the perfect person.  I want none of those things unless they contribute directly to my inner happiness.  I’m not talking the type of happiness you get hanging out with your bros on Friday night over beers.  I’m talking the happiness that is sustained the following Saturday morning.  The kind that tells you, “Yeah, everything is right in the world and I’m feeling completely fine.”

Maybe this sounds simple, and it is.  Perhaps a definition is in order.  I’m talking about complete inner contentment that is not disturbed, at least not easily, by things in the outside world.  Satisfaction with my place in the world, and with me as just me.  The me without any elaborate embellishments or put-ons or masks.  For the better part of a decade I have been working towards this goal and while it sounds simple, it has been anything but that for me.

So along comes this girl with a bright buoyant smile, a devil-may-care attitude.  She’s rolling in late to the temp job we’re working, flouting these man-made abstracts called “time” with a slightest brush of the shoulder and flick of her hair.  She is living in a world of abundance, where everything will work out for her and in her favor.  Where I am coming from a land of scarcity, having to fight for every crumb of existence and work hard for my little piece of the pie.  Like the mountaineer, chiseling steps in the ice with my crampons, digging the ice axe into the crumbly mountainside looking for a proper purchase that will keep me steady.  One wrong step and it’s a*s-over-tea-kettle down the mountainside taking my roped in companions with me.  Headed towards a deep icy chasm of no return.

I thought I had met a Zen Master, a saint.  This person who was so full of life and undaunted by the troubles facing all of her fellow travelers.  It was all an illusion of course.  Her abundance came from knowing she had siblings and others who would bail her out, not understanding there were consequences to her actions.  Having a different concept of time altogether not related to what the rest of us experience.  She was the key player in a holographic universe of her own creation where everything and everyone were simply objects to be contended with.

So I hitched my wagon to this person thinking I found the answers to long-term happiness.  Finally, someone who gets it!  Living in the present moment, carefree since 2003 (and before).  Here’s a partner who can help me get to the “next level”, but then the floor fell out.  The illusion crumbled.  I was with someone who was able to disassociate from reality, not create a deep adaptive strategy to it.  I was with someone who acted like a literal child, not the mind of a child which mindfulness practice advocates.   She was cunning and knew that if she just kept quiet and withdrew there was a chance her version of the fantasy could continue.  She took Mark Twain’s words to heart, “Better to be quiet and let people think you’re a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” I was a fool.

I had put my chips “all in” on this one (as far as my attachment to another person) and “crapped out”.  Going from adding to my happiness to stripping it all completely away, stark naked without a speck of it now anywhere to be found.  How did this happen?

I didn’t foster true happiness, the one I spoke of in the beginning.  The one that comes from the inside and is not attached to things outside, and certainly not to people.  Does this mean I don’t want to be with people? Of course not.  I just cannot be dependent on them for my true happiness or anything material, really.  Actually, I have to take it further than that.  I want happiness not only for me but for everyone around me, otherwise how I can I be truly happy?  This even extends to strangers.  It goes further than that.  I can’t just maintain my happiness to be happy, I have to be sure not to take away someone else’s happiness or do things that knowingly impede their goals to be happy.  It would be impossible for me to maintain my inner happiness if the people around me are always angry or depressed or anxious, well maybe not impossible, but much more difficult. 

A long time ago I learned getting what you want doesn’t make you happy. I was taught this lesson yet again with my BPDex.  I got what I wanted, and worked hard for, a relationship with her.  It not only didn’t make me happy, it was a soul-crushing experience.

My long-term well-being then is most likely tied to having a good relationship with myself, caring for myself and that way I may have the most to give others around me.  I would like that more than anything to have enough inner happiness that a piece can be shared with others that could contribute to their own inner contentment.

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” — Mark Twain

[rob66]

You sound like you are almost healed from the experience. You write with perceptive insight into how experiences like these help us realize, and then forge the character traits that become indelible signs of our inner growth. The process of learning about ourselves by diving, or sinking from despair into the depths to reach for the lessons buried in the sediment of our childhoods and pasts is such an important one. Many times that process is enmeshed with the good times of our lives; sometimes, it is the abjectly painful days in our lives that - if we are capable and not blinded by the experience - have so much to teach.

You are correct, Ad Meliora. Happiness should be generated from within. I have that. I always have. My recent experience took me so far from that, but I kept my eyes and my heart open. I understand there is something to be mined from this. It can't be hate, or anger, or vengeance, as I've read people writing about on this site - such pain is understandable. However, those emotions are dead-ends and appeal to our basest natures; there are no lessons to learn from them. I refused to let my unhealthy anger take hold. I brandished my compassion for my ex, and for others. It is not their fault. I feel for my ex so much.

I wrote in a previous post how I have been trying to extend my compassion to others through this time. From this pain I am becoming more compassionate for the so many that have pain deeper than I will ever know. Yes, the best way to feel better about myself is to try and help others.

Glad to hear you're getting there. We eventually will.  

[Ad Meliora]

Thanks Rob66 for the kind and supportive words.  I'm always grateful to people like you who take the time to comment like this.  I felt compelled to share this post for several reasons.  My diatribes will likely relent from here...

I think you and I are alike in many ways.  A positive outlook, in general, optimists let's say.  We know about setting goals, physical or otherwise, and also know about pushing ourselves physically when on the side of a mountain, for example.

It may be that our tolerances for pain got us in trouble with our BPDexs.  We stayed in too long, thinking we would reach the goal if we just ground through the (emotional) pain.  But that didn't quite work out.  It was a humiliating kick in the crotch and knocked us a couple of steps back.  To be fair, I just stood there, arms and legs akimbo and let her do it.  It's not like I'm some kind of Shaolin Monk who's spent time developing his Kung-Fu, specifically "Iron Crotch" would've come in handy here...

So thanks again, Rob66. I will return the favor and say I think things seem to be progressing good for you too.  I think that "lonely child" info really gave a bunch of us a boost.

[rob66]

Man did that info shed a lot of light on the "why?" of this experience.

Yes, I'm a super positive person. And, yes, I think you are so correct that in addition to my positive nature, my tolerance for pain had a part in investing myself so completely to this relationship. No matter what her troubles were, we would persevere together. Of course, I was buoyed by her words to me that, yes, this is what she also wanted with me. Still, the flags along the way... I didn't see them as mixed messages, or as real consistencies in her real thoughts. I saw them as tiny obstacles. It's telling that you and I spend so much time in the mountains and view the world this way. The human psyche of a person with extensive trauma, however, is not a landscape I was the least bit familiar or experienced with on a personal level.

There is some sadness remaining, but it is so portable, albeit present throughout each day. Pretty soon, it will begin to erode away, like the high Sierra granite on which I enjoy walking so much. Hopefully, it erodes quicker, though.

[Ad Meliora]

There is some sadness remaining, but it is so portable, albeit present throughout each day. Pretty soon, it will begin to erode away, like the high Sierra granite on which I enjoy walking so much. Hopefully, it erodes quicker, though.

Yeah, I'm with you.  Although, I'd actually really like to be with you hiking along the Sierra Granite--sounds great!  It's been a long while since I've been up in the mountains.  I'm in flat country here in the upper midwest.  I used to enjoy going out on one of the coldest nights in January and doing some winter camping with a friend of mine.  He was on Denali, twice, and has all the gear.  He wants to get some use out of it and I'm about the only one fool enough to join him!  My Marmot down sleeping bag was a 0 degree bag 20 years ago, now, not so much...

Anyway I hear you about this "portable" part.  I had been (metaphorically) carrying around my mountaineering backpack all loaded for so long with my exe's crap.  I've set that down.  I'm getting ready to just grab a daypack and maybe my RoadRunner tent.  Find a place in the woods, fire up my Whisperlite stove, make some tea and throw the last little bit of angst on the fire in a nice crinkled up package to be done with it.  And enjoy my tea...of course.

[ILMBPDC]

I’m talking about complete inner contentment that is not disturbed, at least not easily, by things in the outside world.  Satisfaction with my place in the world, and with me as just me.  The me without any elaborate embellishments or put-ons or masks.  For the better part of a decade I have been working towards this goal and while it sounds simple, it has been anything but that for me.

I envy you and rob66. I am fully aware that my lack of happiness within myself is a big reason for a lot of things - my depression, my attraction to unsuitable men, my desire to "run away" (luckily my sense of responsibility overrides that one). Its something I only became truly aware of this year and it is my biggest goal in life right now - to try and be happy with and within my self. I hope I get to your level one day.

[IntoTheWind]

Mark Twain wrote, “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”  Perhaps he’s right, but I hope not.

I've experienced happiness for a few years, the content, every day feels like a blessing type; not the "wow today is so great, my partner is idealizing me instead of telling me that men with big watches know how to ". The kind where you're excited to go to work because it's fulfilling and challenging, and then you're happy to get home and see your partner. I've had that content happiness and I got bored, lots of thoughts such as "this can't be it can it?", "there's no way I got this lucky so young". My mistake was to keep going to increase this content and in doing so, destroying it completely. But without destroying it, I wouldn't know how lucky it is to have that feeling.

I had a partner where I could look like COMPLETE crap in front of, we could have fun throwing a plastic lid around like a frisby in our tiny apartment, we had our moments like all couples do, but I think we had one major upset in 4 years, it was a really silly argument the day before she had to go back to Italy when I moved to America for my new job. It was short, and we hugged it out. She was the most genuine, wonderful person I've ever met. What happened? I got bored, I needed MORE MORE MORE. I guess I got what I was looking for, but if I didn't leave her, I wouldn't have known how good I had it. I projected a lot of this lovely human's traits onto my ex. Bad move, I've made some mistakes in my time but this is THE mistake. I know it's possible to get back there again, and that how abysmally bad I've felt over the last year is only going to serve as something to reflect on when I do meet "the one".

I had put my chips “all in” on this one (as far as my attachment to another person) and “crapped out”.  Going from adding to my happiness to stripping it all completely away, stark naked without a speck of it now anywhere to be found.

Yep, me too. Attachment to a familiar, yet dysfunctional "love", the kind of love that makes you feel sick, I felt that from day one. I remember sitting in my apartment drinking alone after about 6 dates and I have literally never done that before. Something wasn't right but I "had it under control", she pushed hard, pulled hard, "I've got this", "we're just figuring eachother out and we'll make it work", "I think I love this person" and "I'm scared of this person".

A long time ago I learned getting what you want doesn’t make you happy. I was taught this lesson yet again with my BPDex.  I got what I wanted, and worked hard for, a relationship with her.  It not only didn’t make me happy, it was a soul-crushing experience.

I agree with this.

My long-term well-being then is most likely tied to having a good relationship with myself, caring for myself and that way I may have the most to give others around me.  I would like that more than anything to have enough inner happiness that a piece can be shared with others that could contribute to their own inner contentment.

This sounds ideal, I'm still "buzzing" so to speak, constantly moving onto the next thing, next job, next apartment, next promotion. It's only when I have a good partner that the contentment appears. Bad partners escalate that constant buzz. I need someone that "unbuzzes" me, a safe person. I doubt I'll ever achieve that level of contentment alone.

[Goosey]

I read your first paragraph and felt  maybe some how sometimes.
  Read the first words of “her blue” and just can’t read more.
     Thank you for sharing what I can read.