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Writing.Com Item ID: #1013998
Title: Love & Happiness
Item Type: Static Item
Brief: What makes love and happiness work?
Last Modified: 09-22-2005 @ 9:49pm
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Love & Happiness
I have been thinking about love and happiness. Love, when it works, is a wonderful source of happiness, and such misery when it doesn't work. Everyone is always trying to figure out what makes it work. As a teenager I never thought about it. I simply assumed I would meet the right man and "live happily ever after." The really unusual thing is that that's exactly what happened. Well.... it depends on how you define "happily ever after." For me, it's content -- more happy than not; not unhappy. There are moments when I'm miserable, but over all, I would say I'm quite happy.
My husband and I have one of those relationships that people notice and comment on. We don't, and never have, worked for that. After more than thirty-two years, I'm only just now getting used to people commenting on how in love and "in tune" with each other we are. I can remember people saying things like that after we'd been married only two or three years. And they still do. But is it love that makes me happy? I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's love alone. And I think that's what makes the love work. My point is: We love each other and are "in tune" with each other, but that's not what makes us happy, though it definitely contributes to our happiness. I think that's the key. We don't look for love to make us happy. It adds to it, makes our happiness richer, but isn't the sole source of happiness.
What makes our love for each other work is simply that we decided we would always love each other. At those times after we drive each other crazy, that's where we return. It'd be a lie to say we think about it when we are driving each other crazy! But when we are calm and in a rational mind, we remember we love each other and forgive, accept, and/or work on improving -- as the situation demands.
That great rush you get when you first fall in love is wonderful, but that's not love. It's mental/physical/emotional lust. Love is a conscious thing, not something that "hits" you. The brother of a friend of mine divorced several years ago. They were such a good pair. Everyone wanted to know why. Their answer was that they had "grown apart." I felt so frustrated. Duh! Of course they grew apart. Probably every couple does that to some degree. Every aspect of life is a cycle. When you have decided to always love each other, love is what makes you see the separation and draws you back together again. I've never felt I've had to work at staying together, but perhaps the work of it is acting on our decision. In those times when I thought my husband was boring, or uptight or insensitive and out of tune, I still added, "but I love him." When he thought I was too flighty, or messy, or impulsive or out of tune with his needs, he also remembered that he still loves me. Then, as the cycle continues, the rush hits again. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of love, but the love itself was always there.
The misunderstanding is that love is what makes one happy. The truth is that it does and it doesn't. Of course, that wonderful feeling of falling in love, or being in love, does make one feel happy. But happiness isn't wholly from love. Happiness never comes from another person. The happiness that love gives best is the loving. As a teenager I had a teacher who was always sharing quotes about love. One I always remember is "Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." It has proven true throughout my life. Loving someone feels good, even if the loved one doesn't love back. Conscious (as opposed to blind) loving heals, and that feels good, too. But still, happiness is something more than romantic love. Love that makes one happy needn't be of a romantic nature.
It's possible to be happy without being loved romantically. I think loving is necessary, but that needn't be romantic love, either. Happy people generally are friendly people, people who care about others. As a rule, someone like that engenders friendship in return. Those who generally don't like others may have friends, but it's not as likely. (After a while, if one is crotchety enough, even those who love without expectation of love in return have a hard time loving a grouch.) I suspect, though I'm not sure of the physiology of it, that the conscious act of loving creates some endorphins.
Getting one's own way and doing what one wants are other things that people equate with happiness. Again, it's a right and wrong assumption. Of course, these will make us happy at the time, but the other persons not getting what they want will be frustrated, if not outright unhappy. Even if it's by someone I love very much, being snapped at is not happiness. Also, if I always gets my own way about things, I tend to put less thought into what I want, and what I want becomes more meaningless to me. Knowing what I want after careful consideration makes me a lot happier in the long run.
Another ingredient I believe most people realize if they think about it, but they don't think about it at first, is challenge. Something we've had to work for means more than something we got without challenge. The challenge is a relative thing, too. Some people can paint a picture without much effort. Those who can't paint would be thrilled to do something like the painter does while doodling. The painter, however, will value more the painting that he had to redo several times before it was "right." As a poet, the poems I think up in ten minutes sometimes elicit a lot of impressed comments, but the poems that I struggle to make say what I want, the way I want to say it, are the ones that make me happiest -- even if I don't get any comment on them. The satisfaction of a challenge resolved is a definite ingredient for happiness.
I truly believe a positive attitude is also necessary for happiness. Think about it. How many happy people do you know who are negative thinkers? How many unhappy people are positive thinkers? Of course, happy people are sometimes unhappy and/or negative and unhappy people can be happy and see the positive side sometimes. But the people who are generally happy also see the positive side of things most of the time. When I look outside and see the red and gold creeping into the trees, I can start thinking of the shorter days and cold coming and I start to feel bad. I can also think about how beautiful it is and that's when I fell energized and happy. One I don't quite comprehend, but it proves this point, is my brother. He has to deal with clinical depression as a result of both his MS and medication. I asked him once how he coped with it. He said since he had to live with it (antidepressants did only so much), he decided he'd be happy anyway, and he is. So happiness, though it has its external factors, is like love, in that is within the realm of our will.
Finally, know yourself! And accept yourself. Accept the changeable flaws as challenges rather than flogging points. Accept the unchangeable flaws as challenges of a different sort. The better you know yourself, the easier it is to tell the difference between flaws and between giving in and accepting. Get so you're comfortable all alone with yourself. I grew up in a family that was always self analytical, as well as analyzing each other. The accent was always on trying to understand ourselves and one another. Being aware of who we are and what makes us tick (within reason. It's possible to go over board on this) also makes us comfortable with being alone. We can pursue some of those things we want to do, without needing someone else to do them with us in order to validate doing them. We can grow from our own challenges. We are less frustrated and less frustrating. We don't become dependent on someone else for our happiness.
And this brings us back to love. Accepting ourselves and our own flaws makes it easier to accept each other as we are. My husband and I don't depend on each other for happiness. We are simply happy together. The happiness we derive from loving each other is in addition to our general happiness. Two whole, independent people giving 100% of themselves most of the time (no one's perfect!) works a whole lot better than two incomplete, needy people giving 50% all the time.