Unlearning the Lessons of Happiness
“How happy are you?”
Happiness studies are all the rage these days, and happiness books abound. The most popular courses at Ivy league colleges are devoted to happiness and what it takes to get it. The tricky thing is, happiness surveys are self-reporting. People respond to questions like:
I am pleased with the way I am.
I feel that life is rewarding.
I am comfortable with the way I look.
The results of surveys like this are compromised because we have all been programmed to believe that things that cannot make us happy actually will. The system teaches us what a rewarding life looks like, or how to be attractive and sought-after. And if we’re one of the “lucky” ones who achieve these false ideals—at least partially—our response to the survey will confirm that, yes, we are happy. It’s a little like having the Warden present us with the prison’s highest commendation.
If you’ve lived very long, you know what it’s like to win some of those commendations and then realize what a waste it’s been. As Thomas Merton put it, “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success, only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”
So instead of learning how to achieve empty goals, it’s better to unlearn all those lessons of happiness. That is the difficult path of any spiritual life. You have to drop a lot of assumptions, lose so many treasured certainties, admit how much you don’t know, how wrong you’ve been for all these years. Now you’re ready to hear the Beatitudes again, that fabulous guide to happiness that blows every circuit in the conventional system. Jesus speaks of a joy that flourishes in all the places we have been taught to flee. Happy are the poor, the meek, the mourners, the peacemakers, the merciful. It feels weird to try to live by an alternative set of values, but you feel strangely attracted. If there’s a happiness that can withstand any wave of suffering or loss, you want to try.
Many of you I know are on this path, or want to be with all your heart. In a culture of voracious addition, it will always feel crazy or stupid to be subtracting, losing, relinquishing. Nobody wants to stand there naked and undefended. But keep unlearning. You’re in good company. “I am a slow unlearner,” said Ursula LeGuin. “But I love my unteachers.”
Maybe letting go of the assumed happiness goals is why we are asked to be in but not of the world (a phrase that’s complex and often problematic…)?
Yes, and when we are not “of the world” we are truly able to be in the world, as it truly is.
Needing this today, thank you David! I still find myself looking around for the next thing…
You and me too!
A few words from Bishop Fulton Sheen: (I’m dating myself, I know)
Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God.
Thanks—-Sheen was great, always eloquent.
“Jesus speaks of a joy that flourishes in all the places we have been taught to flee…” so true! It sure “feels” like it goes against our M.O. as humans. All the more reason to need the Spirit’s mysterious help to enter those places where joy waits.
Well said—-only possible to venture into those spaces by the Spirit’s assuring presence.
Re- unlearning:
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
-Paulo Coelho
Thanks—that’s just it.
There is a quote about being happy that says basically to find happiness look out a window. If U don’t find it there look out another window , if U don’t find it there find a door & go through it go out side where U will find all beauty & peace & caring that truly matters. There U find the things God made . He made them to make us happy! Why can’t we accept that happiness can’t be bought! It only really comes from within, & that is Gods gift if we r only wise enough to open our eyes & r hearts!
I love opening all those windows and doors—keep opening those portals until you find the Presence.
I remember the frenzy at Yale when the “happiness” course came out – I think it was the most popular course taught there EVER. So all these incredibly gifted, high performing 18 year olds yearn to be the simplest of things, happy. Seems so ironic to me. Crushing life, bereft of happiness. I probably sound like a know it all here but happiness has never been a goal for me, strangely enough. Growth sure, but bring on the pain and suffering and misery along the way (though I wouldn’t say that in the midst of the pain and suffering and misery). And the Sermon on the Mount…I remember e-mailing you David years ago because I am a Bible neophyte saying I just read the Sermon on the Mount and that’s what Christianity means to me. I am really sad right now for a friend from St Luke’s that lost his wife (his “best friend” to quote him) WAY too early…but the Beatitudes say “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” and I choose to believe that. Thanks David.