Are They Looking Outside Themselves for Happiness?

“Seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north.” Tibetan Proverb

From the time I was toddler, I’ve been made to believe that all it will take for me to be happy is to find a guy, get married, and it’s all gravy from there. It turns out that fairy tales and Disney movies may have been pulling a fast one on us all. I, and I’m sure a lot of other people, feel cheated. On the other side of marriage was washing dishes, dirty diapers, and paying bills, no marital wonderland in sight.

In talking to a counsellor, I expressed that something I did made me happy. He expressed that he thought it was wrong to see anything external as making me happy. He suggested I reframe my thinking as being that I like it or that it brings me enjoyment. Happiness, he said, needs to come from within.

Philip Brickman and Donald T. Campbell tell us we are all on a hedonistic treadmill. We have a baseline of happiness that is likely, in part, due to genetics. When something good happens to us, like getting our dream job, we will experience a period of intense happiness. This might feel like the pinnacle of our life and we might think from this day forward we will be living the dream. Truth be told, we will acclimate to this change and will return to our base level of happiness. We will then realize that this wasn’t really the thing that would make our life complete and we will seek out another dream to chase. We are always chasing happiness, never quite catching it for long.

This is how many of us live, always on the search for happiness somewhere outside ourselves. Truth be told, we have a better chance of finding a Sasquatch or the Loch Ness monster than we do true external happiness. You can never fill an internal void from the outside. Still, many people look to relationships as the answer to their unhappiness. If they just have a partner, if they just meet the right person... When we are in love we experience happiness, especially when a relationship is in its early stages and we are euphoric having this new person in our life. We’ve heard all the tag lines: they complete me, I’ve never been more in love, they are my soul mate... Love makes everything about life better.

Some people have a void inside. They try to fill it with food, money, power... Some look for someone else to fill it for them. I have said before that we do things for a reason, including entering relationships. If it’s for happiness, what happens if that person leaves or dies? Does all the sunshine go out of your life? Are you bereft of good feelings forever? Giving that power and responsibility to another leaves you in a vulnerable place. Making one person responsible for all your happiness can be smothering for them. This thinking sets us up for disappointment. No one person can provide everything you need to be happy and especially not at all times. Their job isn’t to try to make you happy.

If you are in a relationship with someone that is looking to you to make them happy, that is a heavy burden to carry. Once they return to their baseline level of happiness and life gets busy with work, paying the bills, and chores, they are going to look at you and may feel you are not fulfilling your end of the bargain as the thing that is supposed to make them happy. They are going to feel let down. At some point, they may blame you for the lack that is really internal. You should never need a person to fill your happiness quotient.

Just as a healthy relationship starts with two independent people, it also requires the coming together of two happy people. Not happy because you have found the one. Happy with who you are and where you are in life before you found them. The relationship brings enjoyment to a life that is already a birthday cake.

I guess it’s time we stop reading Cinderella to our children and instead pick up a copy of The Paper Bag Princess, where Elizabeth refuses to settle for the first ‘bum’ to come along.