You will never be happier than you are now

Have you looked at yourself recently? Truly, deeply, when was the last time you looked at yourself? Beyond the clothes you decide to wear and untangling the knots in your hair, beyond the cleansing of your face and the brushing of your teeth, beyond picking apart your features just to actually pick at your features, beyond your fingers digging into the delicate surface of your skin, your nails scratching at the bump on your chin as if a flatter surface is equivalent to elevated beauty. What do you look like beyond the size of your nose and the space between your eyes? What do you look like outside of the freckles on your cheeks and the proportion of your lips? Who are you beyond your wingspan and the size of your feet? Who are you, without looking at the silhouette of your body and the gait of your walk? Do you know who you are? What do you like? How do you love? Are you happy? Are you a happy person?

Does such a thing exist as a happy person? Or are we merely just tethered to time, our existence defined by the passage of events, our emotions dictated by things around us, and our reactions to them? Does there exist a Happy Person? Is happiness something that you are? I don’t think so. Not in a cynical way, though. I do not move through life believing people are inherently sinister, that the worst outcomes are inevitable. And not in a nihilist way, either. I don’t believe that life and my existence are meaningless. Though the purpose of life, that is a different question altogether, one that I can spin up a million responses to and none at the same time, and most times, I believe that it is not in our purview to understand the meaning of life. That is not a burden humans need to carry. But do I believe in happy people? No, I don’t. 

I would argue that happiness is not something that you are. We as individuals do not exist in a constant state of unwavering bliss, but rather we experience it in bouts, some longer than others. “Happy people”, I think, are those of us lucky enough to live with positive emotions more frequently than negative ones, but still experiencing the full spectrum of human emotions at the same time. Happiness is not a trait, but rather a transient, subjective experience, simply a byproduct of our environment, the people in our lives, our mindset, and our engagement with our own lives. A happy person implies a permanence, an unchanging condition, and if there does exist someone who lives in a perpetual state of happiness, then maybe they have unlocked the secret of life’s purpose. We live in a world where happiness is the desired baseline, and once you’ve achieved the status of a “happy person”, you have also achieved success. But if a happy person does not exist, then what are we striving for? What should we be working towards?

Maybe when we talk about happiness, we aren’t exactly describing joy or elation, but rather contentment and peace within ourselves. I think when I look in the mirror, that’s what I want to see in my reflection. Not pure bliss, chasing an unsustainable high for the rest of my life, but more so gratitude, tranquility in my life. I don’t think that life will ever feel completely whole, completely satisfied, and maybe it is just something I am lacking within myself, but there has always been something more for me to seek, another goal on the horizon. It’s a never-ending trek to the next milestone, and though I feel fortuitous for my health, for my friends and partner, for my privilege, there has always been a hole in it, in my life. I have desperately tried to stuff it with money and love and knowledge and lust and material items, but it is a hole that is not meant to be filled. I have always felt there is more I could do, more I could achieve, more I could be. 

I believe I am a peaceful person. Not peaceful in the sense of warfare, but peaceful in the way a lake settles after the largest rock is dropped in the middle of it. The ripples ebb and flow, but eventually, the water will always soothe. I envision myself to be this resilient, to always find my way back to a state of serenity, an existence not riddled with negative emotions, but not lacking in them either. I have experienced my fair share of grief and pain, and I think my acceptance of the fact that I am not immune to worry or sadness or anguish has led me to a life of inherent peace. I do not run towards suffering, but I do not run from it either. I know that there are many things to be learned from it, and enduring adversity has led to my greatest periods of growth. What is it they say again? How lucky I am to have loved and lost than to have never loved in the first place. I hold this truth to many things in my life. Maybe it is not luck but rather just the guarantee that hardship will come in the human experience, and the best we can do is live and learn from it. 

I am not looking for happiness. I am not chasing for something greater or lesser than it. I find myself balancing somewhere in the middle, like walking the edge of a cliff, every footing counting for something bigger. I look at myself in the mirror, and I still see myself. I still see the freckle above my lip, the slope of my nose, the shape of my eyebrows, and the color of my flushed cheeks. I see the hollow of my neck and the uneven part of my hairline. I see my flaws and resist the urge to self-criticize. But beneath it all, I don’t see happiness. I see peace, I see love, I see laughter. I see an unfinished lifetime of growth, I see younger versions of myself. I see the parts of me I hated but have grown to love, and I see parts of me I have yet to reconcile with. I see hatred, occasionally, and passion, constantly. I see who I am, and I see who I could be. I see someone who wishes a happy person does exist, I see someone who accepts that they don’t. I see someone who has been told they are lesser than, I see someone greater than what I’ve been labeled as. I look in the mirror, and I see myself. I see myself.