So - how happy are you? Be brutal, put it in percentage terms based on the last five years.
What percentage of your life has been spent being happy and feeling good? 10%? 20%? More? Less?
Even now, as you are busy recounting all the unfortunate events which you feel mitigate the low figure, why not just accept it? Maybe this feeling of happiness is overrated. Maybe we should be satisfied with merely getting by, whilst sometimes feeling specially happy.
But then I wonder... Is there not a background happiness which can underpin life without actually requiring us to be outwardly beaming with joy all the time? If you accept the basic premise that we each have a slot in life which we can find if we look carefully enough. Having found that slot, is there really happiness?
Equally, is there not an underpinning misery to lives which are not fulfilling their potential? Sure, they're happy sometimes, but deep sown they are sad. There is a heaviness surrounding such lives. Maybe because they have unresolved issues, or perhaps because they are in an unhelpful relationship - I suppose there are many possible reasons.
Maybe natural disposition has much to do with it. To personalise this, I believe I have a naturally happy disposition. When I am on top form, my happiness is infectious, and I love that. It's great to be with people and spread good feeling around. I hope, rather forlornly, that when I am down I do not do a similar thing.
So what's my happiness figure over the last 5 years?
Being brutally honest: 35% Now the truth: 20%
Who am I trying to kid? 12%
Very deep, and very thought-provoking. I would agree with you in that you have a naturally happy disposition, and that it's infectious when you're on top. Irritatingly so upon occasion, and that's actually meant as a compliment :)
It's extremely hard to express actual happiness as a percentage, though, surely? In all honesty, my happiness percentage has risen quite drastically since I had kids, although it has to be said that my frustration, tiredness and irritability levels have risen correspondingly.
Andy, I sincerely hope your percentage rises over the next few years - and seeing the direction your life is taking, I suspect it will. If I have anything to do with it it will, anyway :)
Posted by: Frank | November 25, 2005 at 05:52 PM
Ahh, happiness, yes not something that can be put into percentages, as with sadness.
If I had to state happiness in the long-term, I would say that on 26 December, 1993, I moved to the North East of England to be with Ian, and I have never looked back or being happier.
Mushy yes, but completely and honestly true.
The best decision of my entire life.
This means the last 30ish percent of my life has been happy, whatever happiness is.
Time to stop.
Posted by: Rebecca | November 25, 2005 at 06:24 PM
Exactly my point - how do you define happiness? I suspect better scholars than any of us ever will be have devoted much time to wondering. As for Andy's mention of a background happiness, I'd say that refers to contentedness. Based on that, my percentage is high.
Posted by: Frank | November 25, 2005 at 06:52 PM
I like your whole life perspective, Rebecca. The last three years have been happier for me than the previous 23. (More actually, but I liked the 2 threes next to each other.) Though these have had their share of frustration and unhappiness, deep down I have been happier. Whereas I would state it totally the other way round for the 23 years, I was basically unhappy, but there were times of great happiness in and among. Maybe if we go looking for happiness it eludes us, but if we get on with living our lives in a way that allows us to be the people we are truly designed to be, then happiness follows. I hope that the North East proves as good a decision for me as it was for you. :-) If that is true for me Andy, then it will be true for you too.
Posted by: Liz Marshall | November 25, 2005 at 06:55 PM
Very astute, Liz, and I agree with you that often looking for happiness is a good way to miss it when it actually occurs. I look forward to meeting you after hearing Andy speak of you for so many years.
Posted by: Frank | November 25, 2005 at 07:26 PM
So, what shall we say then?
What I'm hearing is that happiness is pretty hard to tie down. We might be happy, and not know it till soemthing bad happens, and if we try to make ourselves happy, we may well fail.
Hmmm...
I'm not sure I'm happy about any of this.
You see, in my world, things are either Black and White, or they're not. Well, sort of.
I feel that folks like to retreat into vagueness for tricky areas like happiness, because it is so ephemeral and subjectve - as well as being transient in many ways
I do have three defiite areas that I like to be vague about.
They are:
1) Special things to do with stuff.
2) Other stuff.
3) Other types of things.
Oh mercy me, I have lost the plot.
If only I had the plot of lost - now that would be something.
Time for my medication.
Posted by: AndyC | November 26, 2005 at 04:07 PM
Oh, you're on medication too. Makes sense now. Anyway, happiness like life is all grey and if it was black and white, would be far simpler. Highs and lows from vagueness give a far more satisfying sense of achievement. I know what I mean.
Posted by: Rebecca | November 26, 2005 at 04:38 PM
I return to my basic premise that the only true path to 'happiness' is to have very very very low standards and ideals, which can be consistently achieved, and living amongst those whose standards and ideals are even lower, to give you a feeling of superiority. That's what I've done, and it's flippin' great!
Posted by: Jason | November 26, 2005 at 04:39 PM
Jason, I think I feel a sort of pity for you.
Yes, I think it's pity.
Posted by: AndyC | November 26, 2005 at 05:07 PM
Gladys Aylward lived in a place called 'The Inn of the Sixth Happiness'. Now THAT was some inn!
Ken Dood, on the other hand, sang about 'Happiness', which clever cynics have turned into more poetic rhyme by dropping the 'H' and letting the syllables give the song a whole new meaning.
Sorry.
Posted by: Tim the Enchanter | November 26, 2005 at 07:22 PM
Shocked silence. I think I speak for everyone.
Posted by: Jason | November 26, 2005 at 09:25 PM
Yes, quite extreme, Tim.
We still love you though. Oh yes.
Posted by: AndyC | November 26, 2005 at 11:50 PM
Hmm...some interesting points, but I stand by my premise that being sad and being unhappy aren't quite the same thing. Sadness is reactive, unhappiness is more a state of being. This year I've been quite sad but not unhappy. It's all semantics!
Posted by: Cal | November 27, 2005 at 10:33 AM
I would be very happy right now if Andy would just write another blog.
Preferably one with a happy theme
Posted by: Ian | November 27, 2005 at 05:52 PM
I agree - he insists of course that this isn't a 'down' posting, but it's hard to see it as anything else, to be honest with you. I yearn for something flippant, rude or just bizarrely silly - not that this is what Andy does best, of course, but it would be a nice change.
Posted by: Jason | November 27, 2005 at 06:45 PM
Oh no, I am just being realistic...
Posted by: AndyC | November 27, 2005 at 11:44 PM