I’ll make this brief. I am not an expert. But I have successfully made myself miserable on several occasions, so I figure by using some of those principles in reverse we might collectively get somewhere.
But first a confession from a chronic overthinker with internet access: I watch too much content on youtube about why modernity is royally screwed.
I justify this because I really do believe that everything is figure-out-able, and I think maybe if I can just know enough about said problems I could figure out what to do with this short little window that is my life.
I have not figured out what to do.
And what’s more, even when I try to get away from the doom spiral, my explore page has essentially become a place where I can go to either feel bad about my life or feel bad about other people’s lives (with the occasional meme and animal video tossed in).
All of this has a root however, and since I promised a brief guide I will get right to it. Comparison. When I am comparing my troubles to people experiencing tragedy, I develop a strange sense of survivors guilt halfway across the world. “How can I be happy when so many people are suffering?” And conveniently I also have access to other people’s highlight reels at all times with zero context to compare myself to. Which also doesn’t feel so great.
This whole nasty little weed grows out of a root called comparison (also aptly referred to as “the thief of joy”).
So what do we do?
We could try to shove Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and the like back into the pandora’s box of the internet, join an commune and live off grid; but personally I don’t know if I am cut out for all that. I am friends with one person that I know will never read this because he does not use any social media, and he is the coolest person I know. I am not like him.
What I do have though is some advice I picked up off my friend Allie, “Gratitude is full participation with your blessings.”
I am not here to keep shoving gratitude in the faces of people who have probably heard enough. Rather, my answer to the question of happiness is participation. Participation is the opposite of comparison. What could be more miserable than watching the world fall apart and do nothing about it? What could be more joyful than looking around at the unique little life we have been given and declaring it not only habitable space but holy ground?
And when we do look around, physically, not through a curated and filtered algorithm of a lens; when we drop into our bodies, feel into our space, breathe our present moment, there is so much for us to dance with. So much that is worth our sweat and tears. In a world where children still go hungry, we need more chefs not more food critics.
What do you love? Fill your life with that. Don’t know what to love? Pick a direction that won’t make you soul suckingly miserable.
When my sister was in high school, my parents forced her into playing softball. She went kicking and screaming, arms folded, heels dug into the dirt, and stumbled into one of her great loves. She played the game all four years. We won’t always love what is in front of us, but we might be able to find some solace (and if we are lucky) happiness if we endeavor to participate.
It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don’t know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.*
You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listento the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s the same old story – – –
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.*
And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.*
And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,they can do it.
-Mary Oliver, pulled from the poem Dogfish
Whether you made any resolutions for yourself this year, perhaps consider at least this one: Fully participate with the blessings of your life. Look for what to love instead of what you hate. Make this year one of active collaboration with the whole of creation.
If you aren’t any happier by 2025, having at the very least added to the wonder of the world, send me a message and I will eat my words, head back to the drawing board, and we can unlock the secrets happiness together.
Stay tender and stay true lovebugs.
Warmest regards from the gutter,
Dakota