When being happy isn’t enough

Why can’t the human soul feel happy even after achieving happiness, momentarily

Is being happy enough? That’s a strange question I’m asking for the first time in my life because I’ve spent my life so far chasing happiness itself. Finally, on the cusp of turning thirty five, I feel like I have some cocktail of contentment, gratitude and joy that make me feel happy from the inside out. Instead of taking it all in and soaking in the moment, I’m already asking myself: how can I become even happier? What else can I do with my life to make the next thirty five years count?

Why can’t the human soul feel happy even after achieving happiness, for a momentary phase in life? Am I actually happy if I still want more happiness? Or is there a flaw in my definition of happiness? No, I’m actually happy and content, don’t mess this up by asking such first world questions, responds the part of my brain that has had to live with the consequences of me trying to reinvent myself every few years. Even my therapist agrees, don’t mess this up, he says. But I can’t quiet down the part of my brain that asks hard, annoying questions.

One way to think about this is that I’m climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. First, I need to be grateful for what I have and I am. Every morning I wake up and do a gratitude exercise where I thank God for three blessings from the day before. This can be something new or an expression of gratitude for my able body, family, a job and health. I’ve also worked very hard on my mental health and happiness and know this state of mind is the output of an intentional daily routine and prioritising my mental and physical health first. All this is good, argues the monster voice in my head, but what about self-actualisation?

To answer this question, I need to unpack my tempestuous history with self-actualisation. It’s a long story, part of which I documented in my last column, but basically as early as when I was eight years old, I thought I had figured out my purpose in life. My purpose was to serve Pakistan and solve all its problems (yes, I was eight at the time and thought I could do it). Politics was going to be the vehicle through which I was going to do my service. But I was also born into a middle-class family, with no political background and no appetite for corruption. So I lived life like every other middle class kid, with a little extra drive because of my purpose but never actually took the steps and sacrifice it took to follow and actualise my purpose. What’s interesting is that I was more consumed by the theoretical debates around achieving my purpose versus actually living and optimising my real, lived life.

In many ways, my purpose served its purpose by creating a fantasy world in which I could escape from the bruises and every day trauma of real life. It allowed me to dream and imagine a future that was brighter than the present moment and take some half-steps that made me feel like I was making progress towards my purpose. But my every day state of happiness (or resting state) wasn’t that great so I started incorporating positive habits into my day and also had a daughter around the same time. This significantly transformed my real life and made it even better than my imagined life (purpose). Now that I’m actually happy in real life — even without achieving my purpose — I’m beginning to question my purpose itself. And that’s why I don’t have a good answer for myself when I ask how I should achieve self-actualisation.

Perhaps I should let myself be okay with this and just remain grateful. If I’ve come this far by thirty five, I’ll figure out the rest by forty. And who knows if I’ll even live that long. If I’m happy in the moment, that’s all that counts. On the other hand, maybe this time on my self-actualisation journey, I should start from where I stand today versus where I want to get to eventually.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2022.

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