happiness

Happiness: Journey or Destination?

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Happiness

Happiness.

So many people seek it — but do we really know what we’re seeking?

My husband and I are in the middle of a search for a house to buy. This will be our first. We’ve rented many homes, but we have yet to buy one. Finding a rental had plenty complexity. Sometimes I thought that we treated finding a rental as seriously as some people approach buying!

But this is different.

This feels much more permanent. And weighty. Even as much as we say to each other that we don’t have to be locked into this home we buy forever (which, I think we’re hoping, could perhaps take some of the pressure off of this one purchase), and as much as we say that we could move within a few years… I really don’t think we will. I have a strong feeling that we will live in this house — whatever this house ends up being — for a long time.

Home.

Home means so many things. Home is a refuge. Home is comfort. Home is the place where your family gathers, where bonds are strengthened. Home is the place you return to, again and again, no matter how long or far you’ve been away. What do we want that “home” to be for us, this round — and perhaps for many years into the future? When you start to think like that, this search becomes so much more than just one for a roof over our heads, four walls to protect us from the elements outside.

How does our home search relate to our happiness — both potential and current?

Well. My husband and I have different approaches, different processes, for a weighty decision like this. He is very plodding, very careful, very analytical, very slow. I prefer efficiency, decisiveness, action. To me, it feels like he’s dragging his feet and will never make a decision. To him, it seems like I’m being hasty and imprudent. This is our process, in this big life move. Yin and yang. Push and pull. He says the tension is healthy, but I’m tiring of it.

And herein lies the rub. How much is happiness a process — and how much is it a destination?

When we imagine our home (whatever and wherever it is), we imagine ourselves happy there. How important is it that we are happy on our way to there? The tension of our different styles does not feel happy to me. I get frustrated. I feel stress. What I wonder is, will that all just fade into distant memory, once we’re in a home we love? Will I even care about this process and how it felt, in ten, fifteen, twenty years? Does it matter?

I don’t have the answer to those questions. And I wonder if I won’t have them until we have bought our house and felt happiness there. Maybe that will be the perspective I need.

What do you think? Does the process, or the journey, to a destination matter? Do you think happiness is a journey… a destination… or some parts of both? And what are ways you have found to maximize your happiness and joy while you are in a transition phase (which can often be the hardest time(s) to feel happy)?

Clean

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Have you ever noticed how good “clean” feels?

Today I was reflecting on this, when I realized how good simply taking a shower made me feel. I have experienced a similar feeling when I clean the house — or even just one room.

The sense of relief is almost immediate. Relief. Peace. Calm. Rest. Happiness.

Am I the only one who feels this? I can’t imagine so.

So why is it that, as a species, we spend so much time, money, and energy pursuing other thrills — other highs, or other potential sources of good feeling? You know the drill: shopping, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, sex, food. 

Let’s take just one of those examples. You go on a shopping trip and buy a few new shirts, or shoes. Maybe a new set of pillows for the living room, or a new gadget you’ve been wanting. The thrill is immediate. But then….isn’t it inevitable that many of us feel a sense of guilt before too long?

Maybe we don’t have the money to spare, but we spent it anyway. Maybe we don’t really need what we bought — and we know that. Maybe we are saving for something more important, and now that  purchase is pushed further off.

Whatever the reasons, there are almost always inherent negatives to the means we most often choose in pursuit of that ever-evasive end: feeling good.

Why on earth do we so often avoid the one that is a fairly unassailable win?

A Front Porch in Summertime

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Front Porch. Summertime.

Front Porch. Summertime.

Like churches and synagogues and temples, I have a thing about front porches.

How can you not like a place where you sit, just being? Unlike sitting inside a house, when you are on the front porch, you are at least marginally involved in the world around you. You can hear your neighbors, if not wave hello to them. You can enjoy the dappled sunshine during the day, the crickets at night.

I like to rock in my rocking chair on my front porch. I like to read. I like to drink coffee.

The porch pictured here is the porch from my last house. You know what I most liked about this porch? The plants providing privacy in front. When you sat on this porch, you were mostly hidden. Flowers and greenery were all around. You could see but not be seen. You could observe the world but not be observed. I thought of this porch as being almost a “secret garden.”

I loved this porch especially.