I have spent the last two weeks at the mercy of the flu. It made me less able to fill my head with busyness, which changed my perspective from relentlessly purposeful to a more passive awareness.
"What do you want for dinner?" Robert asks, rising to the role of nurse.
"I don't care, as long as it isn't a lot," I answer, for once throwing out all the various food rules I might otherwise invoke: as in, nothing we already had this week, nothing flown in from another hemisphere, nothing that swims in the ocean, etc.
In such a mood, I stumbled on the Seattle Area Happiness survey, which I recommend, for a reality check about your own view of yourself. http://www.sustainableseattle.org/survey/GNH/en/. Apparently, I have been exaggerating my degree of satisfaction with life. Or more likely, I accept my cynicism as intellectual rigor, rather than the actual damper on pleasure that it is. Anyway, I scored below average in happiness.
Maybe I am too fond of the scientific method, but taking the survey made me think of the aspects of myself that pull me down. One of them is the sheer weight of personal history. Even when life is good in the present, I unconsciously measure today's happiness against the accumulated disappointments that have come before. This is bolstered by the knowledge that I have proof of such disappointment, filed in shoeboxes in a closet, under the heading of mementos. I keep cards, letters, ticket stubs, programs, and the like, in order to have a record of my life. To be certain of my general impression of these materials, I open a box and start going through it. Evidence of bad choices in love immediately overbalances best wishes in Christmas cards, good grades of my son, and proof of a steady diet of cultural happenings. Reading such mementos shows that I have a long history of struggling with disatisfactions, both in myself and others. I continually resolve to change everything into some ideal that has yet to materialize. No wonder I am unable to just be.
Sickness has a way of focusing us back to the physical self. I can't begin to philosophize about how I should live when coughing makes my ribs hurt. But getting back to health, I do see a route to more happiness. I begin to toss the contents of those shoeboxes. Not everything, but the stuff that makes me feel bad. Why did I think I would want to refresh those recollections? After filling a grocery sack, I am starting to feel better.
I also have gone through the detritus of my life, and discovered that many mementos no longer had meaning for me. I also realized that when I am gone, they will hold no meaning to those inheriting them. I know most of it, if not all, will end up discarded in the dump. Moments that meant something to me, discarded.
ReplyDeleteRose
Interesting post. There comes a time in our lives when we really can let go of that old stuff--physically as well as emotionally. But we usually do have to carry it for a while, before we're ready & able to let go...
ReplyDeleteLove the photos, by the way!
"Even when life is good in the present, I unconsciously measure today's happiness against the accumulated disappointments that have come before."
ReplyDeleteThis is true of me as well, and contributes to my general sense of unease and disappointment. I'm going to take the survey, although I know I, too, will score below average, and below where I'd like to be in my life. Perhaps it will give me ideas on how to move forward in a better frame of mind.
what would happen if you accumulated the successes, the satisfactions, the pleasures and good times, and devalued the disappointments?
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