Tracking Happiness

As promised, I think it’s time to talk about keeping track.

One of the subjects that came up in the happiness class has been figuring out what would make you happy and making a list of steps on how to get there.

To me, this is wrong on so many levels.

Let’s start with the first assumption: that you can figure out what would make you happy. I mean if it were that easy wouldn’t everyone do it? The weird fact about happiness, in my opinion, is that what you think will make you happy changes continuously. In the simplest sense, when we’re planning to buy something, especially something we’ve coveted for a long time, we think owning that thing will make us so happy. Like a computer or a camera. (Or maybe if you’re less geeky, a different set of items) And it does make us happy. For about five minutes. Okay, maybe longer. Two hours. Two days. Two weeks. Two years, maybe. But never permanently.

Believe it or not, I think the same rule applies to more significant goals. If you think a certain job will make you happy, or a college acceptance, once you achieve it, it often doesn’t make you as happy as you thought it would. Even a person who made you happy loses its magic after a while. I think, often, it’s more fun to covet. Once we reach the goal, we often start taking it for granted.

I think it’s excruciatingly difficult to know what would make you happy.

Even operating under the assumption that you could figure out what would make you happy, coming up with a list of items that would help you reach the goal isn’t always realistic. If your ‘happiness goal’ is something tangible like getting a job, you could possibly make a list of steps to help you get that job. What if what made you happy was ‘forgiving your father’ or ‘getting over an ex girlfriend’? These are not goals that can easily be broken down into steps. There are things one can do to reach these goals, but since the end result is not tangible, there’s no guarantee that you even reached it. How do you know you’re really over her? You could easily think you are and then run into her in the street and realize that you weren’t over her at all. Not all goals can conveniently be broken down to small steps that will lead you to them. Not all goals are even achievable.

Even moving beyond that unrealistic assumption, I still find the idea of tracking your steps to happiness too practical. To me, happiness is an emotion, not a logical thought. It’s a feeling. It doesn’t necessarily adhere to rules of reason. I can’t imagine reaching happiness by checking off a list of items. Contentment maybe. Sense of success, progress or achievement, maybe.

But not pure happiness.

Previously? Boundless.