Highs and Lows
Sometimes the greatest things happen (even very small things) and I am happy, or reminded to be happy. I lose it so quickly, though. Why is that? Why should some small, dumb thing have the power to make me forget some great, wonderful thing?
Happiness is so tricky. In Brideshead Revisited, the characters become happy by giving up the parts of life that seem to promise them happiness originally--marriage, status, career, romance, art. Those can all be good things. I can't really imagine giving them up. Is that bad? Should I be able to imagine that?
Sometimes, I have such happy moments relating to my schoolwork, and I can't even believe how happy I am that this gets to be my job. Then, I am afraid that I love it too much because it's hard to think of willingly giving it up. Other times, school causes the most worry and distress--and maybe that is related to how much I love it, because I worry that something will make it go away.
The simple life, as Sebastian chooses in the monastery, is actually quite appealing when I idealize it. But I can't choose it just to escape from life--can I? Being in the competitive public sphere is difficult. I want to live a retired, quiet life, but still do the work that makes me happy. I wish I could have it both ways--do the schoolwork without the competition.
Happiness is so tricky. In Brideshead Revisited, the characters become happy by giving up the parts of life that seem to promise them happiness originally--marriage, status, career, romance, art. Those can all be good things. I can't really imagine giving them up. Is that bad? Should I be able to imagine that?
Sometimes, I have such happy moments relating to my schoolwork, and I can't even believe how happy I am that this gets to be my job. Then, I am afraid that I love it too much because it's hard to think of willingly giving it up. Other times, school causes the most worry and distress--and maybe that is related to how much I love it, because I worry that something will make it go away.
The simple life, as Sebastian chooses in the monastery, is actually quite appealing when I idealize it. But I can't choose it just to escape from life--can I? Being in the competitive public sphere is difficult. I want to live a retired, quiet life, but still do the work that makes me happy. I wish I could have it both ways--do the schoolwork without the competition.
posted by Denise @ 10:14 PM
1 Comments:
At 10:47 AM,
Peggy said…
I find your thoughts about the fine line between happiness and anxst to be very compelling. I think that true happiness results only from conquering something difficult, such as fear, completing hard work, or something of that nature. I don't think anyone really finds true happiness in an escape mode. The happiness comes from taking a risk or completing a really difficult task. People who try to avoid unhappiness by avoiding marriage or taking on a challenge that they fear might be too difficult or result in pain of some kind are never really happy, they are just absent of pain, and even that circumstance will eventually become painful as they realize what they are missing...
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