Why Is True Happiness So Elusive?

I've been contemplating this question for...well...hmmm...my entire life. Okay, my entire ADULT life. I just cannot understand why it seems that some people (i.e., yours truly and a few other people that I know) just can't seem to find true happiness. Oh, we have moments of enjoyment and fun, but that is almost always fleeting. Four years ago, I thought I had found true happiness -- I actually stumbled upon it when I wasn't looking, and the unfortunate fact is that this happiness lasted only a few months. Then later, I figured out that it was built upon a web of lies; therefore, I question whether it really was true happiness? Can you have actually have happiness when it's built on deceit? I cannot even look back on those days with fondness because the memories are tainted by all the dishonesty and the hurt and pain that went along with it.

So I repeat the question: why is true happiness so elusive? What exactly is happiness and how do we achieve it? Is it a gift we give to ourselves or is it part of a reward system? The intangible state of simply being happy is hard to find and there are no maps or GPS trackers to help us chart a course.

My douchebag ex-therapist once told me that I don't allow myself to be happy. The word "allow" grates on my nerves and annoys me to no end. "Who doesn't allow themselves to be happy?!" I asked. "You don't," he said. "Being simply happy is difficult for you and it shouldn't be. Everyone deserves to be happy but you don't allow it."

Stated like that, I grudgingly concede that there might be a modicum, just a very small kernel, of truth in what he said. Happiness is always "somewhere, out there" in my future. It isn't that I don't enjoy ever my life. To a certain extent, I do. It's just that I don't feel content with my life pretty much all the time. My dumb mindset is that happiness should be a reward -- for meeting that deadline, for losing those 10 pounds, for doing everything right, in finding that person who will make my life complete, etc.

Many people have a hard time permitting themselves to be happy. Like myself, they tend to be 'people-pleasers' and, while that is great for their families, co-workers, and friends, it is not at all good for the individual. These individuals don't, won't, or can't find happiness. We are too busy being "the good little girl or boy," who must make sure everyone around us is happy first. Or worse, we see ourselves as unworthy, not deserving of happiness until certain goals, usually totally unattainable and defined by others, are met. For example, I can't really begin to be happy until my life meets certain conditions and those conditions vary according to where I am. Home, work, leisure -- every area has its own unique criteria for how and when I might attain happiness. Naturally, I never actually accomplish my goals because they are often unattainable so then I punish myself over these failures.

We can also fall victim to what I call the "Goldilocks Syndrome". Everything in our lives must be "just right" in order for us to be happy. Of course everything is never "just right." Life isn't like that. Nothing is ever "just right", because life is imperfect.

How we view happiness is a prime factor in achieving it. Are we looking for ecstatic, "jumping for joy" happy? Are we saying that once a certain thing "happens" we won't ever be unhappy again? That is fairy tale thinking.

Despite whatever is going on in our lives, happiness isn't something we should be putting on hold. Happiness should be attainable. It should be a feeling of satisfaction and joy for the good parts of your life and the knowledge that you are not just hanging around, waiting for something fantastic to happen.

But all too often that is exactly what we do.

Making happiness conditional will never work. Trying to reach some unrealistic goal set by someone else won't fly either. Conditions and other people cannot define or create happiness for us, only we can. It should be as natural a state as breathing. It should be, absolutely, but that is not how it is. What sinister marker in our DNA makes us gluttons for the punishment of sacrificing our goals or for believing we must postpone happiness until the exact right time?

If happiness is an intangible state of being, then, for some of us, it may very well be ever elusive and hidden from sight unless we begin to make our own happiness our priority.

Of course, all of this contemplation goes under the "physician heal thyself" category. I don't know how to find my happiness without it being tied to other things. <sigh> I don't suppose I'll ever figure this issue out during my lifetime. Therefore, I am back to hoping that my next life is some sort of animal where I don't have to worry about these types of things.