Happiness is…knowing it’s OK to be sad!

 

I remember being introduced to a personal development course by way of a video, in which the presenter talked about choosing happiness as a way of being. He backed-up his speech with a story about a young man who had been raised in a spiritual tradition that enabled him to respond to the death of his sister with happiness. The account was given as a triumph of choosing happiness as a response to the trials of life.

 

I was left unsettled. As the speaker went on to exhort the principle of choosing happiness, it seemed, more and more, that he was encouraging people to limit their choices rather than expand them. It seemed that happiness was not so much a choice but an imperative, as if happiness was the only valid response to have, or state to be in.

 

It seemed ironic that a course marketed to middle-aged people who had endured emotionally repressed upbringings was actually offering a new form of oppression, where happiness is the only game in town, and if you don’t make yourself happy you don’t get to play.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I love being happy! I also know that happiness is not an outer shell that I can put on, but a deeper resource accessed from within.

 

There are times when it is useful to be able to wear the outer signs of happiness as a mask. That ability might get me through a difficult day, however when I go on trying to project a way of being that is at odds with what I am really feeling and thinking, it drains my energy.

 

I find myself recalling an interview with Billy Connolly in which he made, I thought, a brilliant observation. Roughly translated from the Scottish, the words were, “There is no such thing as bad weather, just a poor choice of clothes.”

 

The words appeal to my love of the outdoors, as well providing a beautiful analogy for life. There is nothing better than rugging-up on a cold winter’s day to stomp through the bush. I love the forest scents that emerge when it rains amongst the jarrah, the roar of newly flooded creeks, the saturated colours, and the tiny pellets of rain against my face. I become ruddy-cheeked and just cold enough to imagine a steaming bowl of soup as proof of the presence of God!

 

Choice is the key. If I were to put on my bathers and insist that the weather turned sunny in order for me to enjoy life, then I would be my own worst enemy. My enjoyment of the winter’s day comes from my choice of clothes, and the options for activity that they give me.

 

It seems to me that nature provides a wonderful, diverse repertoire of weather, and that we can therefore have a multitude of experiences within it. It is our ability to respond to the weather that leads to our assessment of it.

 

It is also apparent that humans have an amazing repertoire of emotions. Technically, if we are conscious we are in an emotional state of some sort. (As indeed we are when dreaming!)

 

Our ability to respond to, and the choices that we make about our changing emotional state leads to our assessment of it.

 

I believe that there is no such thing as a bad emotion, just a poor choice of response to it. I would challenge the happiness guru to allow himself to sit in the wonder of sadness, to learn what it has to teach, to grieve within it, and to heal through it, rather than reject it.

 

One last story! A famous picture taken of the group, Midnight Oil, shows them on an eerily-lit salt lake. Eminent landscape photographer, Ken Duncan, took the picture during filming of a music video. When the huge thunderclouds rolled in, the film crew had to pack-up, unable to work in the dicey conditions. It was a frustrating waste of time and money. As the band was getting ready to leave the site Ken noticed the sun starting to creep through from behind the clouds and talked the band members into taking-up their positions. The wonderful light, not of his making, provided an iconic image that could not have been possible without Ken's response to the “”bad weather”!