The happy man does not look back. He doesn't look ahead. He lives in the present.But there's the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The ways of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning - the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life - a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.
Jed Rubenfield, The Interpretation of Murder
I have decided that I am just not constitutionally designed to be happy. I'd like to be happy, and I think it would probably be quite satisfying. I know people who are happy - who are quite content with their lives pretty much as they are. I am married to one of those people. I don't think I'm ever going to be one of those people.
I want to matter. I want my life to be significant. I'm not saying happy people are insignificant. But I wonder whether people who are more likely to achieve things (yes, my definition of 'things' includes some things and not others...) are likely to people who are driven. And people who are driven are, by definition, trying to get somewhere because they are not satisfied with where they are.
I like my life. I think I'm pretty fortunate. But I think there's more. I could be doing more, being more, making more of a difference. I do think there is always greener grass. And, right now, I'm planning on how to find it.
Even if I don't find the rest of Mr Rubenfeld's book 'spectacular' and 'fiendishly clever' as the Guardian has promised I will, I'm grateful to him for making me feel it's ok to want more than just happiness.
7 comments:
i hear you. thanks for this.
Great post. If I could do, I would live in the present all the time.
Sorry, can't agree with you. I am driven, I want more, I may not be satisfied with where I am, but that doesn't mean I am not happy. You can be happy with the path, happy with the journey. There is somewhere to get to, but enjoy the trip.
'Happiness' has a range of connotations - the OED particularly mentions contentment and a sense of pleasure -and I'm talking about 'contentment' here more than anything else.
I'm not sure it is possible to be driven and be content. Yes, you could be pleased with how you're progressing and satisfied with where you're going and enjoying the getting there. But it is about getting to somewhere else rather than being where you are.
And in my experience being driven comes from a dissatisfaction with the present, with how things are - and possibly with myself too.
We have a major philosophical difference here. I am content with who I am (content meaning "ease of mind" or "satisfied") but that "who" is a being that wants to keep moving on, each ilestone points to another, it is never the end. I would actually not be content if I came to the end, if I stopped striving. So you are right that I am not satisfied with where I am now, because I always think that I should be pushing forward, but that is the external. But I am satisfied with the internal, with the person I am, and therefore I am happy or content because I know that nothing will kepp me down for long, that I will strive to solve problems. You can be driven because you want to change the world but happy in that that is the person you are.
Saying that people may be driven by unhappiness with themselves was more a throwaway comment than a whole extra argument. I certainly think it is possible to be happy with who you are and still be ambitious. But I think there's a tension between contentment and a search for meaning or ambition. We're encouraged to live in the present and I think this passage highlighted the feeling that I have that there is an alternative and it's ok to want it.
Ah, now that's different. Yes there are alternatives. yes, it is all right to want that alternative as well. It is only right to question that that is around us, that which touches our lives. To question it and wonder. As someone once said, to wish upon a star.
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