Happiness Karma

If you bang someone on the head long enough with a hammer, they are very happy when you stop.

I was so happy after the birth of my first child because, finally, the hammer had stopped. “I’m so happy this is over,” is the first thing I said. But my husband only heard the first part of the sentence – the “I’m so happy” part because my parched cracked lips had stuck together and couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out coherently.

When my son was awarded a scholarship to attend the college of his choice he was happy and I was happier. It meant the noose around my neck had loosened and I only had to take out the 20 year loan; I could cancel the application to remortgage the house.

The more I think about what makes me happy, the more I realize that happiness is just the opposite of what makes me miserable. Happiness and misery, black and white, yin and yang: one must follow the other in life to one degree or another.

You lose your job; you’re miserable. You find a job; you’re happy.
You get sick; you’re miserable. You get well; you’re happy.
Your boss treats you badly; you’re miserable. You learn the IRS is after him for tax evasion; you’re happy.

When I think back, it seems that my wonderful simple childhood happiness ended when I was about seven years old, at the “age of reason,” when I became aware that life just isn’t fair. The kind of happiness I had as a child would never exist again as an adult. I wasn’t always going to wake up happy, be happy all day, and go to bed happy.

Happiness is like the sunset. On the most beautiful magnificent summer day, no matter how long you keep your eye on the setting sun, thinking if you can just hold the sun in your view, you can hold on to a few more seconds in the day, it disappears. And so it is with happiness; it doesn’t last. But there is comfort in this, for as happiness does not last, neither does the misery that follows, and without the misery, the happiness would not exist. For when misery leaves, happiness takes its place. Remember the hammer?

My mother is such a believer in this balance of happiness to misery that she will try to stop herself from laughing too much in one single day. Why? “Because if I laugh too much today, I’ll cry tomorrow,” she tells me.

So as I get older I try and fool fate and find happiness in small things: an hour a day for quietly reading or quilting, a cup of hot coffee on a cold winter’s day, a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day.

I’m not asking for much. Something small, like being able to zip up my pants all the way and still being able to sit and breathe comfortably throughout the day would make me happy. Finding something on the sale rack that isn’t ripped, stained, purple striped or too tight would make me very happy. And if just once Macy’s would take one of their own 20% off coupons without giving me a song and dance about why that coupon doesn’t apply to my purchase, I would be very, very happy. In fact, I would draw the line for happiness on that day - the equivalent of my mother’s “don’t make me laugh too much” adage.

I want the Gods to see that I want only small happiness, so when the sun sets on my happy day, they will consider the balance of yin and yang and bestow on me only some small misery like a stubbed toe or a flat tire. They’ll give the big misery to someone else, someone with too much happiness. When it comes to happiness, I hope I’ll get my fair share of misery, balanced with my meager little happiness - and not an ounce more!