Does it matter?
If so, why?
If not, why not?
Do you find that, as a core value or a daily focus, happiness is weighted differently from minute to minute?
Or are you one of those people I could never be friends with who sees it as the only reason to do anything or be anywhere? Do you feel that not having it every moment of every day is a reason to bail?
When it matters to you, is it nice when it occurs? Do you stumble across a moment of it, see it only when you feel pleasure?
Are you relentlessly seeking it and depressed and bitter when you don't feel it...read: is it why you try?
Seriously, do you often say to yourself, ‘What’s worth having when happiness is NOT the goal?’
To delve into the etymology of happiness versus joy versus pleasure isn’t as fulfilling to me as maintaining that happiness is simply different for each of us. I’m one of the worst kinds of people because I believe it fluctuates in importance. After all, it’s meant to.
To be human means to feel it all. All of it isn’t happy. If it were, happiness would change.
All of it matters by the end of the day, and it’s usually at the end of the day that you look back on your day and see tiny pieces of it amongst its opposites.
Depression can drain hope and happiness, making it important to have faith. The temporary heaviness of chronic mental ills, when they wave over or into your life, can be unkind to your hopes and, at its worst, deadly. Not falling victim to this (or anything, for that matter, because who wants to maintain victimhood AND humanity…that’s exhausting!) shows you that happiness matters when it matters and it doesn’t when it doesn’t, and both are liveable. You can survive and thrive in either state.
Let it matter when it does, and let it not matter when you can’t seem to find it.
Just know it’s there. It is always there. You need your memories of it on the darkest days. Happiness doesn’t disappear because the world’s evils have a louder voice that day.
It could just be playing peekaboo. It could just be a very long and serious game of peekaboo. (I am thinking of a dear friend of mine who fell victim to her depression. She said this, and I think of it and her often when the pressure is stronger than the joy.)
Remember peekaboo?
~T