How Do You Even Know If You’re Happy?
Like most people, I periodically check in on my wellbeing.
Am I happy? Do I like my life? What, if anything, would I change?
I take two angles in gauging happiness:
A pulse check on “three big areas:” WORK, PARTNER, and LOCATION. Looking at each in turn, I ask: do I like this? Is it working? Is the benefit I get from it worth the investment (of time, energy, emotion, etc.) Do I feel at peace here? Do I feel joy here? And: do I want this in the future? What do I want next? How do I want to grow?
Are there any signs of unhappiness I’m disregarding? For me, I always start with diet and health, because it’s the first area I abuse when I’m stressed. Other signs — such as withdrawing socially — aren’t as strong of indicators of unhappiness for me.
These questions may look different for you.
Maybe you have different “big areas.” Maybe you want to include “family” or “friends” or a specific hobby or passion, I don’t know. Maybe you have more than three, sure. But the point is: decide what’s truly important to you — make a short list, not something comprehensive — and check in on those.
Regarding the second question: it’s so easy to overlook (consciously or subconsciously) what underlying signs there are — especially when these are things we’ve adopted as coping mechanisms.
Sometimes we don’t really want happiness as much as we want our quick coping mechanisms, and when this is the case, we are incredibly talented and creative at explaining our bad habits away, or sweeping them under the rug, or protecting them as part of our ego and sense of self or security — because they are.
We all have our own demons — our own egos, motivations, values, insecurities and fears. Understanding that we have them is the first step. The second, understanding what ours, specifically, are. And the third step is tackling them.
Clear signs of unhappiness
Maybe it’s an acute, stark feeling of discontent — a sadness, anger, anxiety, shame, or depression. Maybe it’s just a constant… unease you just can’t quite explain away; a subtle nausea. but
With work: hating Mondays, hating our job, or dreading doing it
With a partner: fighting a lot, openly resenting or hating them, blaming, feeling fearful or attacked, feeling that they are the problem, etc.
With location: feeling at odds, ill-at-ease with our surroundings
With whatever matters most: dread, feet-dragging, fury, fear
In general: a lack of peace, joy, energy, vibrance, color, lightness, compassion, excitement… and instead, feelings of darkness, fear, anger, shame, anxiety, resentment, deadness, stagnancy, negativity, etc.
I have had times in my life where I have experienced each of these. I have hated my job, hated my city, and yes, been deeply unhappy with my partner. (And on top of that, I have had times in my life where I have also been oblivious to or in denial about it.) We all do.
Subtler signs of unhappiness
We have very clever and creative ways we distract and confuse ourselves, convincing ourselves that we must be happy, even if deep down we aren’t.
1.) We figure we “must” be happy (or “have no reason not to be happy”) because…
We have all of the “markings of happiness” we’re “supposed” to have — whether it’s a spouse, kids, a home, a nice car, etc.
We have a good job or otherwise make/have a lot of money
We chase from one fun or exciting or engaging thing to the next, traveling or going to shows or attending (or throwing) parties (even the grown-up kind) or shopping or major life milestone or whatever
People (our partner, friends, etc.) in our life tell us we should be
2.) We experience other subtle negative feelings
Such as these loosely lifted from Dr. Lissa Rankin:
Complete disengagement with anything and everything in our life
Envy, jealousy, or other feelings that we aren’t “good enough”
Feeling like daily life is meaningless or too task-focused
Yearning for passion, meaning, service, etc, but don’t know what to do
Perfectionism with no satisfactory end-points
Days are permeated by fear
“Fear of missing out” (FOMO)
Making decisions or doing things “because it sounds good”
Feeling like a victim of circumstances that are beyond your control
Feeling helpless, hopeless, or pessimistic
Feeling like we don’t matter or “don’t make a difference”
Trying to fit in and belong, but rarely feeling like we do
Feeling beaten down by “life,” or its challenges
Experiencing fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain or loss, insomnia, etc.
Struggling with accepting love
Feeling depressed, anxious, or chronically worried
Feeling like we’re “not appreciated enough”
Judging others
Numbing ourselves (with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, TV, “busyness,” etc.)
Feeling disappointed with life
Lacking desires, wants, goals — or feeling “unable to dream”
etc. etc. etc.
So.
How do we know??
Some signs that suggest we ARE happy
Sometimes I’m not sure I know the signs.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking I’m happy but deep down knowing I’m not. This is especially the case in small moments — like when I’m chasing down a night, pushing it forward and forcing fun into a space where it’s not. (This is different than a late night that’s actually fun, and you can always feel it.)
But here are some things I can lean on, that suggest I am as happy as I feel:
On “place” (city): I am at peace with — even humored by — my city, no longer constantly negotiating with them, or feeling a low-key power struggle or awkward dance, like I was with others.
On “place” (apartment): I lived in 12 different apartments in the 8 years between graduating college and age 30, and I took great joy in scouting for new places, and felt refreshed and rejuvenated by the process of moving. But for the first time in my entire life, I renewed a lease and do not feel compelled to move. I feel at peace, and content, with where my partner and I are. This may partly have to do with the fact that my current city is smaller than previous ones (Chicago, San Francisco, and Denver), but frankly, I don’t think so. I’m not hungry and left starving for options. I am… content.
On partner: yes. When I think about my partner, it’s just an overwhelming feeling of yes — of peace, of warmth, of lightness but also goodness. I would expand on this, but it’s just the same words over and over: it is peaceful. It is light. It is warm. It is good. We have so much kindness, and friendship, and respect, and trust, and consideration, and… yes.
On work: lol, digging it. My values are honored, I have a long rein, space to play, support to get things done, engaging challenges, room to grow… and for the first time in a long time (maybe ever?), I want my boss’s job (and my boss’s boss’s, and my boss’s boss’s boss’s...)
One could easily write this off as “growing up,” but I disagree.
All of these “big three” happened within a year of each other, and the change in overall lightness was so acute, so instantaneously, so absolute and hushed, it simply can’t be ignored. It was like coming in from a storm and shutting a door sealed behind you, except it’s that with an exchanged smile across the room.
I no longer have to remind myself of the reasons I “am” (or “should be”) happy. There are still moments of irritation or angst or whatever, but overall, it’s just lightness and ease.
General signs of happiness
Really, the opposite of above…
Engagement with your life — the big things, and the everyday
Compassion, appreciation, and love for self and others
Days are permeated by purpose, lightness, meaning, contentment
Feeling of agency, control, optimism, and “mattering”
Healthy coping mechanisms (such as meditation, etc.)
Desires, goals, energy, growth, enthusiasm
Some sneaky things we still experience
We all deal with one of the following:
anxiety (unease, questioning, fear, etc.)
anger (irritation, domination, etc.)
shame (not feeling “good enough,” “worthy,” “special,” etc.)
Of course, most of us experience all of them from time to time, but for the most part, one of them is prevailing and “rules” us above the other two, beneath the surface. (Most people say they would prefer to struggle with anger, but in reality the population is pretty evenly distributed across the three.)
Mine is anger. This is probably apparent in many of my posts.) My second one is anxiety, but I don’t experience it acutely or head-on (I actually, lol, get angry about the concept of anxiety), instead shimmying it around a bit, splashing it with a bit of alcohol and humor. And shame, to be honest, is pretty foreign to me. I actually didn’t even realize people talked about shame until I dated someone who experienced it as his primary of the three.
Anyway.
These sorts of things are always there. We always have little gremlins that follow us around, toddling and tugging at our coat tails. ALL of us.
Happiness is not about escaping them entirely, or denying them. (This, as I’ve said, is instead a major sign of unhappiness.) Instead, happiness is about acknowledging our gremlins, whichever they are — anxiety, anger or shame — and learning how to quiet them gently, without giving in, nor denying.
Is happiness even the point?
Not necessarily.
It kind of depends on how you define it.
But it’s a word we recognize, and one that many of us use, but many (myself included) would argue: it may not be the best defining metric.
A lot of the most meaningful things in my life didn’t feel “happy” at the time — they felt like work. (New parents can relate.)
The goal, really, is goodness — lightness, peace, energy, etc. A sense of vibrance toward our work and those in our life; a calm vibration with the universe.
The goal is to accept our humanness with compassion — to understand our egos, our fears, our insecurities — and be able to handle them with lightness.
And with that, comes lightness across the rest of our lives.
by Kris Gage