Is Happiness What We Really Want?
by On ending the stress of experiencing the ups and downs of life. We always cringe in situations of sadness and we succumb to the fear of losing our happiness. This is a sign of immaturity. Our great need in the modern rat race is to cultivate the art of equanimity.
The Child Within
We all have noticed how children have no control over their emotions. They cry when everyone else is having a good time. They want to play in times of grief or sadness. When they are uncomfortable, they have no patience. It is early realized that pain and discomfort are to be avoided and things that bring joy and entertainment are to be sought at any cost. So the roller coaster of happiness and sadness is experienced quite early.
We adults, who become disturbed by the little egos we have helped develop, go about thinking of punishment to force them to be satisfied with what they have, where they are and whom they are with. But we don’t want to admit that we also have no patience, are never happy with just enough, go about swinging our moods around other people according to what they might supply us and give ourselves and others a hard time as we try to gratify foolish desires. All of this is for the sake of what we call happiness. We kill ourselves trying to be happy, not understanding that this is a short-lived condition, that the opposite of happiness is around the next bend. We tell our children to stop being childish, not admitting that we ourselves are immature.
Often the child in us comes out in our relationships. The other one says, “I’m so happy” and we say “what for!” Or someone says I’m really sad today and we retort with “snap out of it.” We, like children, are always out of sync with people we say that we love. The non acceptance of the fickleness of life, the unwillingness to understand human nature, causes us the stress of expecting some illusory state of perfect happiness.
The Wisdom of Equanimity
There are two definitions of the word equanimity. One is “evenness of mind under stress.” The other one is “right disposition.” If we can understand those definitions, then we can be on a path of maturity.
One illustration that helps us to understand this state of equanimity is that of rowing down a river trying not to crash into either of the dangerous sides. On one side is happiness and on the other side is sadness. If we stay in the middle of the river, traversing our life without succumbing to the extremes, excepting the mixed waters of life with composure, then we will make it through life without debilitating stress. This is wisdom. And using wisdom is maturity.
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