Happiness and the Journey of Life

A few days ago, I was sitting on the bed in my hotel room about six thousand kilometers away from my home, and from anyone who knows me, or for that matter cares about me, I fortuitously happened to meet a movie midway on the cable TV, and was drawn to it. I caught it at a point where a middle aged man was sitting in a hospital room watching over his wife who had just being involved in a boating accident, and was put on life support.

That usually should be normal, but this is the background. These couples have not had marital bliss, and they had been married 17 years. The wife was having an affair while the husband was out travelling on business. The elder daughter had caught out the woman once and she turned to drugs and alcohol. But then the accident brought repentance out of the guy, and he was ready to do all to make their marriage work. However, in a fit of rage, the daughter told the man her mum had been having an affair with another married guy, and revelation led to some consequences for all of them, including the philandering married guy. Sadly this married woman did not wake up from the coma, and was eventually unplugged from life support and left to die. And it was so tragic….Having wasted the better part of 17 years, the man discovers he really loved the wife. 

Somehow, the woman whose husband was having an affair with this ‘wife’ got to know about this sordid tale, and in a period of self analysis also realized that she had not really loved her husband but was just content with her life. The philandering husband confessed to the husband of the sick woman that he never really loved the dying woman, in the end it was just a complex cycle of make belief and a false state of happiness.

Interestingly over the previous days, I had been mulling over some thoughts based on recent conversations and discussions with several people, and also based on observations all around me, and this question about happiness and the journey of our life came to my mind.

What is happiness? And are we really happy with our lives? Are we happy with the choices we made or the choices that were made for us? Are we fulfilled with our lives? What is this one thing that fulfills us, or the combination of stuff that fulfills us. Are we doing this or these? Or are we on our way to doing it or them? I know some people are happy with their lives, but are they fulfilled? Other people have a sense of fulfillment, but are they really happy.

Looking back over our lives? Have we consciously made decisions that has now given us a maximum sense of fulfillment and happiness, or have we allowed other things or other people to make those decisions for us, or even to set for us the parameters for our happiness and fulfillment?

I think about the marriages and I know a lot of people that are not happy with their marriages. They are not happy with their spouses? They feel as if they are in this timeless bondage. They can’t get out of it, and yet they can’t seem to make it work. The best of their efforts are not reciprocated by their spouses. The truth is that both of them actually have different ideas about what brings fulfillment and happiness so there is constant friction. And I ask, at some point in their lives, they could not have seen the rest of their lives without the other person. What happened afterwards? Why do two people who loved each other perfectly in the beginning go for each other’s jugular shortly afterwards? Why do the “for better for worse”, said with so much hope and optimism on the wedding day become an albatross a few months or years later? Why does a perfectly conceived union turn into a disastrous mismatch shortly after? What is it about happiness that appears like a mirage to a lot of us humans!

Why is it that our achievements or our status seemingly does not satisfy us anymore? I think back at my growing up years, and how we looked starry eyed to the future with promises and aspirations…and shortly after, fate begins to make choices for us. Some of these choices we agreed with and even participated in, others, and in most of these, we were bystanders, rail-roaded into certain choices because of parents, peers, society, culture, and even ideologies. We bend and bend, in short, we conform to the wishes and the dictates of others.

Kids go to secondary school being encouraged by their parents to do science subjects instead of the arts, thereafter they are persuaded to study specific courses in the university, mean while no one truly asks the kids what they really want. On the flip side, some are forced into courses of study that is so different from what they planned to do, from a dream of wanting to study Medicine to the reality of Botany; from the aspirations of being an engineer to the stark reality of ending up in the mathematics department; from wanting to be a lawyer to finding yourself in the sociology department. Unfortunately, instead of waiting for what we desire, we get egged on to continue…and continue we do, till we graduate and we find out that we resent the courses we do.

Workplace beckons… we mostly do the jobs we can find, not the jobs we want. Engineers become bankers, Agricultural economists become IT analysts. We just carry on, we make progress, we buy things, we get promotion, but are we happy really? Are we really fulfilled?

I think the real issue is that we conform a lot; we please other people instead of ourselves. We bow to society, or culture or ideology, and we never really think about the person within us and what that being really wants to do.

We do a lot of things; we are involved in all sorts of activities. We have a lot of things, but the things that really deeply fulfils us or gives us happiness, we hardly do a tenth of it.

Now to the people we marry. Most people I know didn’t marry their first love. Neither did they even marry the one they love. Ask a couple the reasons why they got married to their spouses; you will be shocked to the marrows. I will use another blog post to discuss this in more details. But the fact is that we live our lives the way we are expected to live it, not the way we hoped we would have lived it.

Marriage is funny. Two perfectly matured adults (hopefully this is the right description) come together in marriage and a few months later, what we get is a house managed by irrational adolescents. In about 90% of marriages, either one or the two parties in the marriage is unhappy. This is not because of the external things, but rather because of lack of fulfillment. One party is not usually fulfilled, mostly the woman. Aspirations are not met, dreams are not pursued, roles are defined to the disadvantage of the woman. This doesn’t happen in all marriages, but every marriage has its own unique issues.

Let me push the envelopes of conformity as it affects our happiness. Say you have money; society tells you what you should spend your money on, how to spend it, what amounts to spend, who to spend it all. Society or people determines what car you should be driving, what dresses you should be wearing, even the way that you should talk. We mostly live our lives to please other people, not really to please ourselves. We leave things undone because we were trying to do something that someone else wants. We let go of our dreams because we cannot pursue it anymore. We look at our lives and see windows close on our dreams and our aspirations.

Don’t get me wrong.. some of these things we have to give up legitimately, but I ask myself, at some point in the future, your life will consist of memories of the things that actualized you and fulfilled you. Would you have some of those things to hold on to and to remember?

The economic situation of the country forces a lot of conformity and brings situations where people are afraid to pursue their dreams because of the likely impact on their lifestyle. Early life misfortune has derailed quite a few also. You have brilliant people who have to work as maids because of lack of opportunities; so also you have potential professionals learning menial work because they lost a father or even both parents. These ones go through life okay, but they have regrets about not being able to do the things that would have really fulfilled them.

I go back to couples. I know marriages where a spouses has jettisoned their own happiness for the sake of the husband’s career, or even for the sake of the marriage. I hope these husbands are grateful enough to acknowledge this sacrifice. And guys, if you can and you should, help her to get fulfillment in her life too, otherwise, you really don’t have a wife, you have something like a bomb that can explode on you one day! Help her! Grow together! That is what true love is. You will end up with a much better wife and a more fulfilling relationship.

I have rambled enough, but I believe I have started something that will make us all think.. Are we happy or content? Are we fulfilled or just getting by? It is not about the comforts of our lives alone, it is about the fullness of our living. Look into yourself, are you letting your dreams go? You can rationalize it… you can waive it aside, but one day comes when you will think back at your life and you will remember that you didn’t get to the point of self actualization… And at that time, that realization comes with a lot of regrets! I do not wish it for anybody, me inclusive!

PS: I welcome your comments…please.