Musings On the Nature of Happiness

I'm trying to allow myself to give advice more often.

I try to avoid dispensing advice, even to my closest friends, partially because I'm worried I'll give the wrong advice, and partially because I don't feel qualified to give advice in specific situations. But again, I think my unwillingness to give advice is in large part a reason why I'm not closer to my close friends than I am now. That, and how worried I get about opening myself up to others. Since the latter is something I want to work on as both a person and an advocate, I figure I should be working on the former as well. I didn't really know the situation, and to be honest I don't really know the friend that well yet, but as I've said, I'm trying to be more a outgoing person.

So if you're struggling between doing what you think is right, and doing what you know you want, I'm probably going to give the same advice at all times: follow your heart. I followed my head to near exclusivity for a good 20-21 years and it brought me nothing but anguish and depression. Granted, I wasn't being super serious when I offered my advice- I mean, "follow your heart" has become kind of a catch phrase among my friends, but I still think it's fair advice.

Then someone else chimed in, and their response was so dripping with cynicism that I had to stop myself. I don't believe in hell, but if it does exist I think there's probably a place there for cynics. I try as best as I can to not to place value judgments on people, but there are few things in life more worthless than cynicism. So naturally the response got me riled up, and when I get riled up my mind races, and it brought me to some fairly interesting conclusions.

Usually when we're thinking following our head we're thinking about doing what's right. Now this is usually a matter of morality, but morality has become so socialized and normalized that to have one's own moral code (and morality is supposed to be individual) is to be seen as a hedonist. So really, most often the choice becomes doing what you want and doing want other people think is right. Now, for some people following this societal moral code may be important, and in some situations I would certainly argue for following your head. I often rail against extreme ideological points of view and this is no different; arguing you should always follow your head is as worthwhile as arguing you should always follow your heart, which is to say not at all.

But I have a theory that people are fundamentally unhappy when they choose to try to follow their head as much as possible. Now, this is subjective and based entirely on my own experiences, but I think pretending to be able to give objective advice is a fairly dishonest practice. Objectivity, certainly on an interpersonal level, is an absolute myth. But try to follow along. The head will tell you a lot of things; it will tell you what should do, what you shouldn't do, what other people will think of you, what you feel you're required to do, and so on and forth. The heart, on the other hand, will tell you one thing and one thing only: what will make you happy. When people talk about whether they should listen to their heart, it is practically always about something that would make them happy. Now, this isn't always a lasting happiness, and the momentary happiness may not actually be worth whatever it is you lose to achieve it. And it's important to live that life of balance. But it's just as important to do what makes you happy.

So why do people consistently choose against their own happiness? There's so many reasons, and this is something I wouldn't understand if I didn't live a vast majority of my life living it. Speaking from my own experience, I often chose against my own happiness because I thought I was choosing the happiness of other people. Here's something I've learned: the heart certainly is concerned with your own happiness, but the head is not, it is not concerned with other people's happiness. It is concerned with other people's expectations, and this is a huge difference. And I really feel that no one should putting other people's expectations above their own happiness. Now, there may in fact be people for whom other people's expectations are of most importance to them, and if that fulfills them, gives them a sense of pride, then I would say that they're happy and leave the point at that.

Of course, the head has something the heart doesn't have, which is a brain. The heart may know what makes you happy but it can also be supremely stupid, and it's important to recognize when your heart's being stupid so you can ignore it, or better yet find some other way to find happiness. If step one of the advice is to follow your heart, then step two is to have no regrets. If you are following your heart, it has to be something you know you won't have to regret. And we regret a lot of things we don't have to. So do indeed follow your heart, because if you do you will find, even if only for a moment, happiness. Don't regret it, don't wallow in it, and certainly don't carry it as such a huge burden that you feel the need to advise a younger generation to steer clear of personal happiness in lieu of society's expectations for them.

It's not perfect advice, but it's a start.