Chasing Happiness Finding Joy

The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the most comprehensive study about happiness ever conducted. Begun in 1938 and following successive generations, this study has followed family units for eight generations.

The study correlated factors related to well-being and happiness. The study found that the most important factors are taking care of health and building loving relationships. According to an article in Medscape, good health is essential to live well. Researchers also determined that meaningful relationships were the most significant predictor of health and happiness during aging.

I beg to differ with the Harvard Study, on the issue of happiness. I am a big fan of happiness, but it is pretty fickle. Happiness comes and goes based on external factors, sometimes beyond the control of the individual.  Health is not a de-facto determination of happiness. From my own experience with sudden and radical changes in health, I can honestly say some of the richest times of my life have unfolded in the ensuing years as I learn to live with chronic illness. That’s not to say it hasn’t sucked a good part of the time, but that’s not the whole story.

Having meaningful relationships is an indicator of life satisfaction. On this point I agree with the Harvard Study. I think we are lucky if we have two or three close companions in our lives. I am blessed to have to take off my shoes to count the people I count on. I am inclined to take off my shoes anyway, because whenever we are together we walk on sacred and storied ground.

There have been a few surprises along the way. Sometimes people I expected to be companions with me through the changes in my life were suddenly in the wind. On the other hand, those I never dreamed would be of support through the ups and downs of my health have been my closest companions. Not everyone can show up for sick duty.

Going a step beyond the Harvard study and its focus on health and good relationships, there is joy. It is made of much stronger stuff than happiness and is not dependent on emotions or the outer circumstances of life. Joy is a state of deep contentment that can exist even in the face of profound sadness, illness and death.

I learned again and again from my hospice patients and their families that joy resides in the deepest place of love. And even when life was ebbing to a close, there could be moments of deep joy and contentment. A life spent together, the sacredness of the dying process, the promise of suffering coming to an end and comfort until that moment unfolds. It is not a rowdy kind of joy but a quiet inner sense that all shall be well, even when it seems everything is falling apart.

Joy is not something we can will. We cannot grit our teeth when life sucks and say, “Well, I’m going to find joy now.” Joy is something that taps us on the shoulder and enfolds us in its soft embrace. It doesn’t come crashing in like a brass band. Rather it comes in on a whisper, a gentle breeze that reminds us that life is still happening around us. Joy can surprise us when a cardinal lights on a branch outside the window and sits there in all its brilliant red glory. Joy wears a million faces. Moments of joy gently invite us but never push their way into our life. It is always there, always ready for us, even when we aren’t ready for it.

Joy may not move in and set up shop for long periods of time. Rather comes in moments that are ours for the receiving when we are ready and tuned in.

Joy is not a short cut through pain. It is not a detour around pain.  As my therapist used to tell me; “The only way out is through.” We have to find our own way, in our own time, in our own process. Along the way we can discover moments of joy. Authentic joy can exist side by side with pain, illness, sickness, death, sadness and the panoply of human emotion and experience.

As Psalm 30 verse 5 reminds us, “Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes with the morning.”