Moms in the County: Happiness Left Unfelt

How do you define your happiness?  Many people say it is your friends and family that you surround yourself with that defines not only your happiness, but a part of who you are as well. Most of us want the college experience, the career, to find that soul mate, have the grand wedding, get the house and have the kids, in some sort of order.  So then why is it that, after obtaining these things, many still feel a void?  How do we fill it, and how do we really, truly, find happiness?  

Seeking enlightenment, as understood by the Buddhists, would that help us find happiness?  Finding and loving God, as understood in Christianity, would that help us find true happiness?  Living life as defined in the Koran, living for Allah, does that help us find happiness?  How do you understand happiness?  Does it come with age?  Experience?  Time?  Education?  Tried, successful and failed relationships of all kinds?  Do you finally figure it out, at a ripe old age, when deaths door is upon you?  If so, then what?  Is that when you find peace?  Would peace then, be defined as finding true happiness?  Should we be ashamed, when we are abundant in our material surroundings, healthy children, and marriage that survives all currents – calm and rough, and yet still feel this void?  Can you love your children, and family, but still not feel that true happiness is within you? 

To some, happiness comes in a bigger home.  A faster car.  A six or seven-seater van.  It may come in making more money, having more disposable income, taking lavish vacations.  Perhaps in nice dinners out, pretty clothes and nice shoes.  For those – happiness will forever be ‘out there,' to be acquired.  To others, it may be knowing you have a roof over your head.  A car that takes you to and from, wherever.  Food on the table, and a healthy family.  For those – happiness may already be attained. 

Some experience mid-life crises.  They are not happy.  They have a void.  They may be the ones that have the deepest, richest green of green grass, yet still see that greener lawn next door.  They may already have the family, the busy life, the Disney vacations, cleaning crew at the house every month, hobbies, kids, health, wealth, etc., yet, their grass is not green.  Not enough.  What fills that void?  More importantly, why is it there to begin with?

Many of us have family and friends, people that you think want and need you.  So why is it one day you could merely be walking down your street, and realize you really don’t need or want any of these people?  That your ‘friends’ and ‘family’ are people that create a void, not fill one?  Is that too, a need for a greener lawn, or is that a sign that happiness needs to go beyond family and friends.  Can you have both?  Family and friends that do not truly bring you joy, and still seek out your true happiness?  In this case, does it make more sense to let those people and things, that create or do not fill voids, ‘go’, and move on in search of the void filler?  What if, in that case, it is not found?  Then what?  When death's door is upon you, will peace be felt?

Many questions, all with a need to point in a similar direction.  The direction of happiness.  I wonder, is that direction always steps ahead of us?  In the future – calling our name?  A future of new jobs, friends, new knowledge?  Could it be behind us, a part of our past – maybe left unfelt?  A person who stepped out of our life, that maybe needs a chance to be allowed back in?  An event left undone – maybe a college degree never obtained?  A place not visited, that has purpose and meaning, but we have let life stop us from going there?  Is the happiness we need to search for, in front of us as part of our future, or behind us as part of our past?

Could it be, maybe, just maybe, that happiness is right next to us?  Sitting with us right now, as part of our present?  Making all of the noise that children make – causing frustrations that spouses can cause – concerning us the way finances cause concern?  Is looking, then, for happiness, causing an unnecessary void, that would not exist if we just let what we already have in, letting it coarse through our veins, and allowing it to hydrate us with happiness we had all along?  Is happiness all around us, we are just too busy to recognize it?   Unsure and unfelt.