Patricia Corre enjoying two of her happiness activities in one go—taking long walks and admiring bluebell flowers in France. (Photo by Claude Corre)
“…in the quietude of the dressing stand…appears to reside one element (that has no substance and no concrete form) after which the human mind yearns always and which it so seldom finds: happiness.” – Rose Tremain, Music & Silence
“Sweetheart, I don’t know what happiness means,” the academic, political analyst and activist Petronilo Bn. Daroy told me eons ago when, on a grade-school assignment, I asked him what made him happy.
He was Tito Pete to me, my folks’ dear friend and colleague, since deceased, who visited regularly. Having replied to my question, he smiled at me and proceeded to chat with my folks. I chalked up his “odd” answer to a quirk of an intellectual who, to my young mind, lived in a different world from mine, where pressing issues included my memorizing the multiplication table so my father would let me watch Voltes V.
It was unnerving to find myself, years later, unable to define happiness beyond Coney Island ice cream, Estrel’s caramel cake, robot anime, a good book, etc. I seemed to understand the context of his flippant reply.
I had careered into a rabbit hole in adulthood, preferring to hide from the world rather than experiencing it, following disappointments and disillusionments. I opened the door to exit every now and then, but burrowing under what seemed a better choice than surfacing to more disappointments and news about injustice and the overall breakdown of society.
Was I cocooned in sadness living? I often asked myself. I wondered, not for the first time, how my friends were faring with their lives. Were they making each day count, or were they burrowed deep in their own rabbit holes?
Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project, a gift from a high school friend, had me move a foot out of the rabbit hole. Rubin was experiencing “midlife malaise—a recurrent sense of discontent and almost a feeling of disbelief,” not depression or a midlife crisis—and came to the conclusion that she wanted to be happy. To get out of her malaise, she embarked on a year-long experiment of trying to be happy by making changes in her life, a decision she arrived at while in a crowded bus.
Rubin was experiencing ‘midlife malaise—a recurrent sense of discontent and almost a feeling of disbelief,’ not depression or a midlife crisis
Going to bed early was her first suggestion, which I heeded. With boosted physical energy, I finished my kettle bell workout properly, and practiced yoga consistently.
Next, I deciphered what Rubin calls the “fog of happiness.” She defines it as the “kind of happiness you get from activities that, closely examined, don’t really seem to bring much happiness at all—yet show how they do.” She learned it at a party after chatting with the host who remarked that he’d enjoy the party once it was over. Looking at her activities—i.e., writing, throwing parties, raising her children—she noticed that they always elicited feelings of “procrastination, dread, anxiety, nervousness etc.,” but, upon closer scrutiny, made her happy.
My fog of happiness, I determined, included book hunting, reading, writing, and occasional socializing and traveling.
Erniza Johari, an English teacher in Singapore, finds her fog of happiness in two places. At home, she “[looks] for storage ideas… [having] always lived in places with limited storage space,” and new vegan recipes. A new addition is looking at furniture and home decor ideas in preparation for when the offer she made on a new apartment is approved.
Outside of her home life, she is on vacation. Her bliss starts with combing the internet for vacation places and flights, “[whiling] away hours looking for possible flight itineraries when I haven’t got a vacation planned yet, [and] tours and activities, hotels, and destinations once a trip is planned.”
Similarly, France-based Patricia Corre’s fog of happiness focused on home-centric activities such as cooking for friends, gardening, and home improvement projects. She has since expanded it to embrace reading, writing, taking long walks, and enjoying the sea, mountains, flowers, and trees.
Patricia Corre tending to her garden in France. (Photo by Claude Corre)
Patricia Corre’s fog of happiness focused on home-centric activities such as cooking for friends, gardening, and home improvement projects
But just as you’re enjoying life, your happiness suddenly falters and throws you into desolation. The things you loved doing become a morbid routine, leaving you feeling like a hamster on a wheel. Undeniably, its short-lived nature is part of the happiness trinity.
I have wisened up to the fact that ignoring it only fuels the intensity of the thought that happiness is like grasping at straws.
It was how it was when I was based overseas. The memories of rushing to yoga and spinning classes or training sessions at the gym, activities I liked, after work stand out vividly: I arrived and left roiling in unhappiness, an emotion I’d sought to banish. (Running thought: Living in another country isn’t always a walk in the park.)
Rubin’s happiness was deflated by her tendency to explode in “quick bursts of temper,” especially if things went awry. “I indulged in that behavior all too often, and then, because it made me feel bad, I behaved even worse. I wanted to be more lighthearted. I wanted to take steps to preserve the happy memories from this time,” she says before her epiphanic doubling down on not yelling at her daughters and finding humor in mishaps.
The varying depth and experiences of unhappiness round up the trinity. Erniza Johari thought she’d never find it, being “unhappy for long stretches,” mostly in her marriage of more than 20 years.
“I didn’t know it then. It wasn’t even a contentment of pleasantness that I was feeling, which many of us mistake for happiness. But I suppose I wanted to wait until I felt utterly unhappy before taking any action for my own happiness,” said the former radio deejay, whose happiness then hinged on her then husband’s or child’s mood. She got through her daily life and avoided questions from people by feigning happiness.
Erniza’s predicament was déjà vu. Like her, through the years, I’d smiled through awkward situations and conversations to keep up my image of the perky cousin, colleague, employee, friend, niece, and whatnot. But I groused underneath it all.
Patricia Corre exploring the canola fields in a village in Venix, France, in April. (Photo by Claude Corre)
Through the years, I’d smiled through awkward situations and conversations to keep up my image of the perky cousin, colleague, employee, friend, niece
An e-mail exchange with long-time friends Claude and Patricia Corre had me applying the philosophical brakes on my musings. I was awestruck by Claude’s thoughts that diametrically opposed mine. For one thing, Patricia’s husband declared he’d never been preoccupied with his own happiness.
“It comes naturally when you give. Happiness is composed of moments you share with others. Achievements can give you joy, pride, or narcissistic satisfaction, which are not happiness for me,” said the Frenchman.
Claude, an engineer who once worked in the Philippines, went on to say: “You don’t have to do things to be happy. Doing nothing but listening to others and giving your time can be a source of happiness. Happiness is the result of decisions. [Deciding] not to be unhappy anymore, which is already an important step in life, can have tremendous consequences.”
Is this what the French call joie de vivre? A mega dose of it would fix me up quite well, I mused as I read on.
Patricia treads a similar philosophical pathway even with her activities. Happiness, for her, is not outside of herself, but something she carries with her.
“It’s not a prize and not the ultimate goal. I try my best to be completely present in the here and now,” explained the English teacher on hiatus, whose practice of mindfulness helps her reach a certain degree of well-being and “solidity” to deal with anger, anxiety, despair, and fear.
She added: “Every ordinary task like weeding, watering, and deadheading in gardening, or washing dishes can be transformed in a mindfulness practice which can bring about happiness…This is ideal, that every task you have to do may actually bring happiness, but…we know it’s not easily the case.”
My usual IG scrolling landed me on a page that echoed Claude’s sentiment and shared Rubin’s book title. Happiness Project was set up in 2017 in honor of the page’s owners’ classmate who committed suicide. Its mission is to “end the stigma behind mental illness,” stop suicide, and spread happiness.
One of its posts is a vignette of a teacher who’d given each student a balloon to inflate, write their name on, and throw into the hallway. The students had to find their balloons in five minutes after the teacher mixed them up. When they couldn’t, they were then told to pick a balloon and give it to the person whose name was on it. The task was completed in five minutes.
The vignette ends with the teacher saying, “These balloons are like happiness. We will never find it if everyone is looking for their own. But if we care about other people’s happiness, we’ll find ours, too.”
‘This is ideal, that every task you have to do may actually bring happiness, but…we know it’s not easily the case’
Pinning down happiness is daunting, but not impossible, it seems, with acceptance and a particular mindset. In contrast to the Corres, I’d been long locked in a quest for happiness, as if to make up for past life decisions that I blamed for my unhappiness. I wasn’t aware of what Rubin calls the “sadness of happiness.” It’s a situation where Rubin accepted her “true likes and dislikes,” and the sadness in her limitation (i.e., her inability to appreciate most of what the world offered).
Her recognition of the intimacy of happiness and sadness recalled for me the lyrics of a Sinatra ditty Love and Marriage—“You can’t have one without the other”—that synchronized with Claude’s thoughts. “Happiness and sadness are inseparable. We have to fully accept this to keep hope…When you are at the top, the next step is a fall. We have to abandon the idea of a ‘complete happiness,’ which is so boring and mortal,” he said.
For Erniza, a former editor of a magazine on parenting, searching for happiness became easier after she put herself first: living on her own and setting her own rules. Significantly, in adjusting her versions of happiness through the years, she’s not looking to achieve complete happiness, firmly believing in the “impermanence of the good things in my life.” But, “like Troy Dryer in Reality Bites, I take pleasure in the details,” she quipped.
Skeptics might find Rubin’s happiness project an inapplicable undertaking because of its personal approach. I reckon she’s giving suggestions that worked for her which, she thinks, might work for others because, in the end, happiness is achieved on one’s terms.
I’m doing two of her suggestions and trying the one on being more “serious about play.” Rubin and I like reading children’s literature, and so, I’ve been reading the adventures of Moymoy Lulumboy, a Filipino boy able to do magic and shape-shift. I’ve splurged modestly on my happiness—another of Rubin’s ideas—by buying books. Now, if I had extra cash, I could make her other suggestion of making time for friends less digital and more personal by showing up at their doorstep.
I think of Tito Pete and if his answer would have been different if I’d used the word “contentment” instead of “happiness.” I would never know, of course. But I’m pleased to recall his visits, his mirth and wit swirling in our old house filled with antique stuff bought from his shop.
Frankly, after everything, my definition of happiness remains nebulous. I’m still working on getting my other foot out of the rabbit hole.
Erniza Johari on holiday with fiancé Michael M Sammut in Europe (Photo by Erniza Johari)
