Happiness?

Happiness is deeper than we think it is.

In speaking with Snowflake last night, one thing I commented I was trying to work on was my state of mind - my happiness - when I come from work.  Frankly, it is far less than what I think it should be - and it seems to be affecting others.  No matter how much I try coming in the door with a hearty " I am home" has eluded me - for years.

But Snowflake made me think deeper about it.  "It is not just then"  she said, "it is always.  Is your mood in general happy?  And how are you in general when you are around people?"

Ouch.

The truth is that I am not a very happy person.  Oh sure, I can put on a grand show, be the jovial "Hail and Well Met" fellow that appears to have things well in control and moving forward, but in reality I am not very happy.  Not psychotically so mind you, and not to the point that it prevents me from being a functional human being.  But certainly not anywhere near what I often seem to portray.

Why?  Well, here is an even more difficult question:  What is happiness?

I wish I could answer that question conclusively.  It would resolve a host of other issues.  I could then confidently say "This is what I define happiness as" and "These things hardly make me happy".  Instead, I am left careening through the day and a listing of activities, some of which provide me joy but perhaps contribute little to my life, some of which provide me no joy but must be done, some which provide neither joy nor a sense of purpose, and a very few which make me happy but do not seem to lead anywhere.

What would a life of doing mostly activities one likes look like?  I certainly grasp that there are always things which must be done, but what if the bulk of my activities were things that I either enjoyed, added value to my life, or allowed me to live on purpose.  What would such a life look like?

I cannot imagine - I can only imagine the negative, which I seem to be living every day:  a dull sense of grinding activity in which I grit my teeth, trying to endure another day or week in order to make it through to the things I like to do.

And this one thing I can speak to definitively:  enduring is simply not the same as happiness.