Can You Be Happy?
By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)
Written October 30, 2008

It has come to my attention that even if you gave most U.S. citizens everything they needed for a carefree survival (clothing, food, shelter, transportation, etc.), they still would not embrace happiness. I see people adding layer upon layer of stress to their lives for no apparent reason, not out of necessity or survival needs. It even seems that a huge percentage of people secretly crave stress, chaos, and turmoil in their lives. Some sages of old say some people create chaos just to know they’re alive. And I am seeing that part of the gift that nature and wild places provide is a confrontation of humans with their superficialities, making most of life’s problems seen from this arm’s length, seem as real and relevant as high school gossip is to one’s adult afterlife.

Certainly there are life situations that cause chaos, situations such as being a victim of child abuse or a foster kid. The chaos is not of the child’s choosing, and minors are too young to leave independently. Most commonly I see the unwilling loss of human dignity, though, regarding financial matters via poverty. But I am talking about AFTER THE STORM. If you weathered survival-mode living and came out the other side, still alive, a bit tattered, but finally in a safe harbor – I am talking about where people go, mentally, after trauma and survival-oriented behavior with regards to happiness.

It makes sense to me that people who have survived constant survival-oriented traumas such as homelessness, hunger, abuse, etc. would need time to unwind, and rewire their brains to receive comfort and safety unarmed again. But I see people from secured middle class backgrounds, people who have never been so poor as to have to live in an apartment in their entire lives, for example, having access to every physical whim they could dream up – not being able to enjoy themselves either. As the toys pile up in my friend’s garage and backyard, as her spoiled children go through toys, musical instruments, sports equipment, cars, etc. like toilet paper, I see these children, now adults, are absolutely unappreciative of all the junk mommy keeps buying them, while mommy complains like a broken record of her money and job woes trying to keep the two Lazy Twins in their material decadence. Unlike trauma survivors who need to learn they have a right to happiness and that happiness can exist in a safe place, there are many spoiled Americans, raised with such grotesque excess, that they cannot appreciate things or achieve happiness due to insatiable appetites accompanied by attitudes of entitlement.

Whether due to excess or due to a lack, I am seeing that people are terrified of happiness. It is almost like they fight it, with endless excuses about how they have to be miserable, making no efforts at all to either avoid things that distress them or pursue things that comfort them beyond superficial and temporary immediate gratifications. Things like drugs, alcohol, and egoism, worst of all, are fleeting "fixes." But for a happy life, rather than a miserable life with a few bright spots and comfort stops, one needs to invest in conscious lifestyle choices that yield longer results than a pitcher of beer can offer.

Doestoevsky said the thing that humans fear most is their own freedom. Perhaps for the exact same reasons humans fear their own happiness, as well. I was miserable in 2005. I hated my life entirely. I vowed to make a strategic life plan to consciously derail the bummer I was on and to revamp my directions with purpose. And now I am beginning to harvest the rewards of these concerted efforts on my part. The sacrifices I made over the last few years are now coming to fruition not only with new career skills and educational opportunities to help my financial situation and keep me growing intellectually, but also in that I have moved to a place I enjoy living. Now that I finally have things I’ve worked so hard to achieve, living a block from the beach, in sunshine most of the year, studying, researching, writing and working on an advanced level, looking forward to better economic traction and law school, shortly, as well – with few stressors but for limited finances and past demons of doubt – with all that, could I now be happy? And I found that I had to make a conscious effort not only to allow myself joy and happiness, but to not feel guilty for merely enjoying nature’s sunset over the Pacific Ocean...some kind of survivor guilt I need to let go of.

Some would ask, "What is happiness?" That is a legitimate question. As intangible as happiness can appear, I do know the tangible reality of unhappiness. Alike the concept of "health," one knows what happiness is often due solely to its lacking in comparison. I know that when I was living in an urban city environment, working endlessly for free for poverty pimps and "anarchist anti-capitalist capitalists" (who will keep you as destitute as "The Man" for their personal profits), fighting online over politics, or fighting police on streets as a street performer trying to eek out a living, all of these things frustrated and depressed me, sucking me dry. They made me unhappy. In contrast, participating in higher education and academic professionalism, and walking to the beach every day makes me happy. Standing in the ocean froth, with seabirds squawking, and the undersides of the clouds on fire at sunrise, as I contemplate some great literature I just read, or just watching the birds dive-bomb fishing in the sunset’s orange, my senses are stimulated and pleased unlike how I felt on the grimy gray streets of downtown Seattle. I am challenged intellectually at school while learning marketable skills that will help me stay living at the beach with livable wages in the end. Am I unhappy? No. Does that mean I am happy? Maybe. It’s such a foreign feeling to have a happy life, versus just a happy moment in a stressed out life, that I am a little confused myself.

Can you be happy or do you need constant consternation? If given food, shelter, etc., what would you do to be happy, to play and enjoy yourself? Could you enjoy yourself? Or would you immediately create interpersonal soap operas, or take on innumerable stresses to fill the pleasant void? Has dischord become your comfort zone? Would you soil a happy environment channeling "Debbie Downer?" Can you be happy? I ask that sincerely.

And as I spend time on desert floors, in sandstone canyons, at the ocean and beach, and in the mountains, I am more alone, with me, than usual. Nature absolves politics, which can be relaxing. I find new definitions of happiness, uncluttered with urban trivialities. I dream bigger and come home with more resolve, inspired, when in nature. Nature teaches me how to be happy by taking me back to the drawing board, unfettered by self-made human tragedies (but for the ecologic destruction evident in all nature due to humankind). Is a mountain happy? Is a star happy? Is the wind happy? Are the ocean waves happy? Is the beach palm tree or the desert cactus happy? Is "happy" even relevant in such terms? And do rocks and trees and wind and waves whisper the same questions amongst themselves about humans under the dark cover of the night sky?

"Think of our life in nature, - daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, - rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?" – Thoreau, “Ktaadn” (1864)