How to be happy

Today’s assignment in my writing book is to write a story in which the protagonist does not get what she wants but nevertheless ends up happy. I’m drawing a blank. Crazy because, well, this seems like the absolute frickin’ theme of life. Actually, THAT’S what I want to write. I want to write about the assignment rather than writing the actual assignment. And is it just me and my sense of irony, or is that yet another way that I’m not getting what I want but ending up happy?

Of course, lots of us don’t end up happy. But that’s the struggle, isn’t it? I’m tempted to say it’s the actual meaning of life, but I won’t. I’m still holding out on discovering something more profound. Or glittery.

And there are people who get what they want. (Accumulated bitterness in my heart makes me think these people are rare.) And to be honest with you, I believe that most people, when it comes right down to it, don’t actually know what they want. So they have exactly no chance of getting it.

Speaking of which, do I know what I want? Probably not. In fact, for an unreasonable amount of my life, the answer has been, ‘I don’t know what I want but it’s not this.’ To which you could oh-so-rightly accuse me of being an ingrate.

But to be fair to myself, there have also been great swaths of my life when I was content, happy, hand-clapping joyous even. In fact, one could argue that these times outnumber the discontented times, both in number and duration.

Huh! Maybe that’s it. When you’re grumbling how you never get what you want and it’s all just a big ol’ struggle, maybe the key to being happy is remembering that you often are. Maybe it’s about realizing that moods are just the weather. Gray skies will clear. (Drought, tornados, and ice storms are in the future too, but you get my point.)

I realize a lot of what I’ve said is standard gratitude journal stuff. Be thankful for what you have. Hardly revelatory. But I will add that I’m convinced both positions of the pendulum are important. Without darkness, you’d have no measure of the light. Sadness helps us appreciate happiness. And don’t worry. I won’t be some super annoyingly chipper person and say, “See, by not getting what you want you get what you want!”

Instead I’ll stick to, hopefully tomorrow you’ll get what you want and in the meantime, you have my permission to be pissed off. Like really ticked. You know, mad enough that your happiness meter tomorrow goes off the charts.