3 Surprising Signs of Happiness
(or at least that you’re okay)
Do you know that calm, warm feeling of being surprised by joy? Like a balloon rising, or the sun on your face when a cloud moves? I call it happiness, and it is the best.
Happiness is also a feeling, and it fades. A happy life is something more than that. There are lots of signs when it comes to overall happiness, and these are three surprising ones.
Want
Hunger
Dissatisfaction
Want. I am a natural wisher. I like birthday candles, a new year, and the first star I see tonight. When I have no wishes, I am not okay.
It’s an interesting thing to realize—that you have to reach a level of okayness before you want things. This is especially true of simple things like a silky-gold bomber jacket or a new picture of dandelions on the wall. I don’t think of bomber jackets and dandelions when I’m in despair.
Hunger. When I went through chemotherapy, I had no appetite. They kept the nausea under control with one of the many drugs they pushed along with the chemo, but I had no want. Nothing sounded good. Nothing sounded bad.
Food insecurity is not a sign of happiness and completely different from this point. This one is about me in middle age often cursing my appetite because it loves wrapped snack cakes so much and a big, big supper with great conversation that goes on for hours while nibbling on something for all of them.
I don’t think I’ll do that anymore—curse my appetite. God bless hunger because it means I’m alive and want to be fueled. As Rilla of Ingleside says, “Taste life? I want to eat it!”
Dissatisfaction. A speaker I follow online says, “You can be wildly happy with what you have, and still strive to grow.”
When it came to things I wanted to change in my life—like a job or how early off-season workouts were for my kids before they could drive—I generally cycled from rage to resignation only to find that with resignation comes a noticeable lack of aliveness.
Resignation feels a lot like lack of want and hunger, and there is no happiness in it for me.
Contentment—yes!
Fine? Definitely.
Those are happy. But resignation, not so much. I like the questions why and why not. I want the passion and curiosity to be dissatisfied with “that’s the way it is.” That’s when I am the real me and glad to be her, which is a pretty good definition of happiness.
In the book, Build the Life You Want, by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah, I learned that unhappiness is NOT the opposite of happiness because a happy life has lots of varying emotions.
There is no better news for a girl like me than to hear that it’s best if you feel.
I am all. over. that.