In These Troubled Times Happiness Is More Elusive Than Ever

Behaviour Article

“I just want to be happy.” Have you heard that line before?

What about this: “If I just had…I would be so happy.”

People are forever searching for happiness, yet it continues to elude many. Polls such as Gallop show that most people are not truly happy. Other polls taken during COVID-19 showed that Americans were the unhappiest they had been in 50 years. Even in Australia, which has always had a reputation for happiness thanks to the climate and lifestyle, unhappiness has been increasing, a trend that started before COVID-19.

People who are searching for happiness are searching for a one-sided state. If you look at the first part of the statement above, ‘If I just had’, this is a conditional state. Some set of conditions have to occur for a person to be happy. You can also state the corollary; “If I didn’t have…, I wouldn’t be sad. This is also a conditional statement. Happiness or sadness are conditional states. The illusion we’re fed from early on is that life can be one-sided. We suppress the disowned part of the other half of our existence. There is a state that transcends the two polar opposite emotions.

You cannot operate in a one-sided life. For instance, people believe they would be happy if they had no money worries, were famous or were extremely wealthy. Recently, I saw a documentary on the life of Ingrid Bergman. She was one of the great actresses of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. She had the fame and success that anyone could hope to achieve. However, her personal life was a disaster on many levels. She not only had three marriages, but she had numerous affairs and relationships both in and out of marriage. In 1950, she had a child out of wedlock, which was scandalous in those days. For her dalliances, she was pilloried by the international press and by her fans. There are similar stories of many others in the entertainment industry, such as Marilyn Monroe and John Belushi. On the one hand, many in the entertainment industry are geniuses but inept in their personal lives.

Happiness and sadness are, in a way, bipolar states with varying extremes. Still, there is something we can do to transcend those emotional states.