Why Can't I Just Be Happy?

“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.” ~Ram Dass

Suffering by definition: the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. As humans we typically strive for what we perceive the opposite of suffering, happiness: the state of being happy. Of course why wouldn’t you? Nobody wants to suffer.

For many years I looked at the two as separate states of being. I felt if I was happy I would not suffer. Conversely, if I was suffering I could not be happy. It was a simple focus and one I felt was personally achievable. Easy, right? Choose happiness. I had read and studied within the New Age movement, devoted myself to spiritual practices, elevated my thinking, dedicated myself to clearing out all the people and experiences I felt were in some way not promoting happiness or causing me suffering. I moved houses, left jobs and changed friends repeatedly with little notice, justifying my actions by saying “whatever causes me unhappiness is not worthy of my life.”

I filled my bucket, so to speak, with all things “happy.” I paraded myself and my spiritual practices around like I was untouchable, like I had somehow reached a higher plane of existence. I had done everything “right.” I would sit back and receive compliments on my “evolved” thinking and state of being. 

This was all very delightful thinking until reality started knocking on my door. My life was going down a road I did not plan for. It was surprising and painful and pulled me down from the pedestal I had put my own life on for several years. I was ineffective, swirling in a sea of emotions and thoughts wondering what the hell just happened? This wasn’t supposed to happen! Thinking you can control the events that bring about significant periods of suffering is like thinking you can control the change of the seasons or the passing of time. You simply can’t.

You know those people who meditate every day and go to yoga appear to glide though life with a calm flow, but then you are with them and they rant in a dark and negative way using four letter expletives to describe their relationships? That was me. Still in a fit of deep denial, I continued on. Same patterns, same beliefs, and same thoughts.

One morning I was lying in bed and I thought to myself I don’t get it. I try to be happy; I do all the things that are “supposed” to bring happiness. Why do I feel like I am on a pendulum swinging constantly between happy and suffering?

Maybe it was an act of divine intervention, or maybe it was my habits and behaviors of thinking coming to a screeching halt, but it hit me: maybe part of happiness is not avoiding suffering? Maybe to experience happiness we actually have to experience everything else, including suffering. Then it further hit me: my avoidance of suffering was actually causing me to continually suffer. Look, I’m completely aware that it takes me more time than the average person to come to important conclusions such as this, and I also admit I often need to experience these things firsthand to bust through them for good. This was a pivotal moment. 

Maybe I’m not to try so hard to control the seas and the storms in my life, instead roll with them and accept and allow they are all part of living a well rounded life and that honestly is the goal. It certainly caused me to re-evaluate the narratives, stories, and beliefs hardcore. And it also brought about a deep state of grief. An ideal I had been striving to attain was shattered. The messages I received from society began shedding, and with that shedding the enormous grief rose to the surface for me to once and for all face and deal with. I was growing up, and facing the most important lesson of a lifetime. I needed to allow that grief process. It allowed me to let go a little of holding so tightly to my imagined life, and instead embrace the real life I had in front of me.

I realize looking back on so many of the reading notes where clients asked “when will I be happy?” and I noticed a common theme: people were looking at the circumstances of their lives to provide a feeling. So was I. I totally got it. 

It caused me to ask really good questions: what would happen if when I felt like I was suffering (hurt, fearful, or sad) I just went with that and stepped toward it rather than away from it? What if I didn’t dump the feelings and try to exchange them for happiness?

So that was what I started doing. I didn’t stop doing all the things that brought me happiness. I didn’t stop being a good person, being thoughtful or mindful. I didn’t stop being me. I suppose I started being more me, and embracing all of me, both the dark and the light sides. What a profound transformation! It really felt like a death. To further the path, I stopped looking to others and the things in my life for my own happiness. 

I had to let go of the idea that suffering was a bad thing, and instead accept that it too was also a part of life. I began to see the beauty in the suffering, because I started to realize that all the struggles I had been through were actually causing me to become stronger and realize the truth of my own power as a human being. It caused me to have more compassion for myself and for everyone else in my life. I embraced my own humanity probably for the first time in my adult life. 

To be free of human suffering means we are dead. Since that is obviously not the goal, what if instead we began embracing this more expanded version of our lives, and normalize moments where we are sad, angry, grieving, and suffering as well as the moments we are happy and free? We’re not being less spiritual or less than a human being by allowing ourselves to be sad, to move into the winds of sadness or despair, in fact, I assert we are spiritual and more human than ever in those moments. Genuine spirituality is to be yourself at any moment, no matter what this moment brings you. Spirituality isn’t about clinging to the “good” moments—it’s about feeling the good and bad. I can be a happy person who moves through painful experiences too. Whenever I feel the opposite of “good” feelings knocking on my door, I let them in, and I await their departure. The truth is, they will dissipate and when they dissipate, happiness comes in. But, at some point, my happiness will also dissipate. Happiness and unhappiness are a cycle and one can’t exist without the other.

I don’t have a magical pill or formula for happiness. All I know is the moment I accepted the full range of experiences I was having instead of running away, stuffing them or “deleting” them from my life, I chilled the hell out in a big way. It positively impacted my state of mind and my relationships. 

Happiness and suffering are just feelings we experience. We either step toward them or we step away from them. We deal with them and turn a corner, or we suffer more for trying to avoid them.

I found that there is a space in the middle in between happiness and suffering that respects our entire being. It is place where we are gentle with ourselves and also courageous to overcome. We don’t need to allow our suffering to take over our lives. Aside from developing a mental rut where we attract suffering as the preferred state of being, we are capable of moving the waves of suffering and grief in and out again, with our direct dealing with them. I would also assert many things in our lives happen that are out of our control. Even releasing that need for control is freeing, and instead building in ways to cope with the inevitable changes of life. This is the tremendous lesson in spiritual, psychological and emotional growth and resiliency.

My answer to the question “Will I Ever Be Happy?” is just be yourself. All of you. The whole shebang. Certainly take opportunities for growth and for lifting your spirits, indulge in your favorite activities and hobbies, appreciate the beauty of this world, and seek to find the good. Those are practices that make times of suffering bearable. 

Now when someone asks me about happiness I invite a deeper dialogue and ask what is at the root of that question first. I discovered something interesting. They were really asking about something else, and these are the questions they really meant to ask, afterall: “how can I stop feeling bored with my life?” or more commonly “how can I control everything so I don’t feel pain?” When those people were encouraged to end the blame game for the circumstances in their life causing their unhappiness, and instead focus on bringing more of themselves to their lives…it started to change something in the conversation. It moved things from a passive “wait game” to an active mode of being. Realizing we generate happiness has been a game changer both for myself and those I work with. However, it’s an active process, not one that we can sit back and wait for. It requires attention, a shift in attitude, being aware of the choices we make, being willing to take risks, trying new things, embracing change even when we don’t like it, and yes, dealing with and accepting our own suffering.

Another even more helpful tip: stop relating to emotions as good or bad, positive or negative. Emotions are what they are, and we experience them all. We assume because we feel “bad” that must mean we are failing at happiness. Life is one big beautiful mess mixed with a wide spectrum and range of emotions and experiences. They are all equally important. They create character and build our spiritual and emotional resiliency.