Am I happy?

Am I successful? Have I achieved? Am I satisfied?

Satisfied? Satisfied with what? I wish to write, of feelings and passions I can only dream of. I wish to sense the intensity of light and to dance with the Devil, to release myself to a hurricane of abandon; but what am I doing? I am sitting, secure and warm, labouring over a few words and the fantasy of what I might wish to be, unsatisfied.

I read that happiness is a feeling and it is generated spontaneously within me if I allow it; that I choose to be happy or not. Perhaps. What is happiness? Perhaps it means to feel high spirited – but I can be above average no more than half the time.

I am to be responsible for myself – nobody else makes me happy or sad. I can choose to accept that responsibility and escape having to feel that I must meet your criterion of happiness. That makes me happy as I have a sad face; people have often told me so.

Do I really want to be satisfied? I am not so sure. To be satisfied with my achievements or success is to judge them worthy. What motives would be left to me then? My fantasies might remain to entertain me but they are not my purpose. So what is?

Does that matter? I suspect that my purposes mean little to you – just as yours are not important to me. I believe it is more relevant to consider whether I am pleased with my progress toward whatever purpose I have. Does my chosen purpose enable me to be content with the way I am able to apply my available resources of time and energy? Does it enable me to find contentment? Not satisfied with what I have achieved, but content in what I have tried to do.

Content? Yes. I think that is more important. To be at peace with myself and my circumstances enables me to celebrate those moments of brightness and to mourn the darkness, which must also be traversed, with equal grace.

What more could I ask of life?

Peter Hoban

Original: July ‘99
This page is part of “Living in the Light”
found at: http://www.geocities.com/phoban2000/

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