Happiness

I recently asked a young friend what she wants in life.  I thought that she would tell me about a career, having a family.   But what she said, was that she wanted to be happy.  We are struggling in Nepal due to an unofficial border closure from India causing a major lack of petrol, cooking gas, medicines and other items as well as still trying to recover from the April earthquake.    We don’t know how long it will take before the border is open again.  Although this is a major topic of conversation we seem, at least for now, to get by.

As I ride my bicycle through the somewhat deserted streets of Kathmandu I notice the impact-when there is petrol, long lines, red LPG cylinders lined up waiting to be half filled, food prices soaring.  But during this time I also see the lovely multi-colored rangolis and orange marigolds adorning the front of homes and businesses.  I listen to many children playing, singing and dancing.

The Dalai Lama, Matthieu Ricard, poets, philosophers, we all seem to write and think a lot about happiness.  But as we look around the world happiness, at least on a consistent basis, seems to elude us.  We look for happiness externally from a partner, a product and words from another.  But it’s just not there.  We hope that we find the right person thinking that will lead towards happiness but it doesn’t seem to happen and if it does we still feel unhappy.

I want to find happiness like everyone else and  I do when I’m with children, coaching or playing basketball, when I have a conversation with my children, when I’m with friends who don’t mind having in depth conversations, i.e. connecting, seeing a smile appear on other’s faces when I smile, taking a hot shower, the list goes on forever. However, I wonder if I can be happy on a more consistent basis, i.e. by not letting other’s emotions interfere with my own?

Part of this is about how I react to what others say.  I picture a comment and how it spirals into my ears making its way to my brain and then hits the pit of my stomach.  Or sometimes how it goes through my ear canals to my brain and I have no reaction.  A lot of this has to do with my feelings in the moment and how my brain finds the storage cabinets where I’ve heard the comment before and tells me how to react.  It’s not really about what a person has just said to me but more about how I reacted when maybe I was a child.  I’m more attuned to this now and try to observe rather than react, but sometimes the little boy in me is craving for so much acceptance and love that I can’t get out of my way.  Fortunately I can go back, breathe into the emotion, speak to those positive voices in my head and come out ok. 

Living in Nepal has taught me about a different kind of happiness although the west and its abundance, focus on materiality continues to creep in. Today some children danced at the NGO where I am staying and I gave them money which apparently wasn’t enough.  There was disappointment on their faces.  Maybe they expected more because of my face, but why wasn’t there satisfaction, happiness, with just receiving.  Or why can’t we dance for others, have relationships, be with friends without an expectation? Might this lead to further happiness?

I know that I do expect a lot from others and mostly these expectations are not met.  That is my issue, I accept that, but it also causes me to be unhappy. If I could turn this around, have few, if any expectations and then be surprised, my happiness might seem to overflow.  But again, why should I or anyone else look to others for their happiness. 

It’s not new but intuitively I know that happiness must come internally, that I must feel that I’m enough that no matter what happens in my life I can be happy. The outside world is just too harsh and I read the newspapers too much.  Having happiness without having to do too much work may be enough for this life and this with practice must come from inside.