A Full Life Is Not a “Happy” Life
My kids are picky eaters. Routine fights at dinner time have given me ample opportunities to ruminate on possible reasons why they won’t eat. Here’s my latest conjecture: their over-picky judgements of food are based on a too-strict criteria of what good food tastes like. For their immature pallets, sweet food is the best; and so they judge all food on a scale of how much it tastes like candy. In their minds vegetables are gross because they don’t taste anything like cookies. As I’ve matured, I have developed a more diversified palette leading me to enjoying things like wine and coffee which are hard to call delicious in the same way I call cake or cookies delicious. These distinct genres of flavor are enjoyed for their own sake; for the uniqueness that they provide.
While my kid’s attitude for deciding what is worth eating sounds shallow, I’ve been guilty of the same kind of shortsightedness -- not when it comes to food, but when it comes to my emotional state. I’ve lived a stagnated emotional life because of a too-strict criteria for judging my feelings. If I’m not feeling happy, what I’m really suffering from is not unhappiness, but a too-strict criteria of what good feelings feel like. My “emotional palette” is no less immature than my children’s taste in food. I am a picky emotional feeler who designates most feelings as “bad” simply because they don’t feel anything like “happy.”
Take a look at all the emotions on the menu with this list made by scientists attempting to delineate all human emotions into 27 distinct classifications: admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation, amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, craving, disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, excitement, fear, horror, interest, joy, nostalgia, relief, romance, sadness, satisfaction, sexual desire, surprise. Happiness didn’t even make the list. Probably because happiness is too vague - which is so apt. How much time do we waste longing for this thing that we haven’t even fully articulated? It’s vagueness only perpetuates the sense that it’s lacking.
I think a big reason we don’t enjoy the full range of emotions is because our American culture perpetuates the idea that it is achievable to be happy all the time. Not only is that not possible; but it piles onto feelings of unhappiness with a feeling of failure for not being happy. The fear of failure -- also distinctly American -- has us continually denying our emotions. Absent the judgment and fear, have you ever truly felt sadness? It has a charge to it that is as enjoyable, if not more so, than a state of happiness. With it comes solidarity and belonging to the human experience. Feeling sad with others just might rival the enjoyment of solitary happiness. This is a big part of Susan Cain’s thesis in her book Bittersweet, where she says, “If we could honor sadness a little more, maybe we could see it—rather than enforced smiles and righteous outrage—as the bridge we need to connect with each other.”
Kids aren’t the only picky eaters. A curious thing happens to people who live luxurious lives. They become hard to please and rather than mourning the loss of their ability to enjoy simple things, they take pride in their newly gained inability to enjoy anything but “the best.” By undermining their ability to enjoy simple, easily obtainable things, these individuals seriously impair their ability to enjoy life. Being hard to please is not a sign of sophistication; it’s a sign that you have an inability to enjoy life. The same goes for not settling for anything less than happiness. To participate in the full breadth of human emotions, starting with whatever you’re feeling in this moment, is to get the most out of life. Happiness is a self-limiting emotion that undermines your ability to enjoy simple, easily obtainable emotions.
Developing a taste for something isn’t a shortcoming. It’s a way to enrich your daily life. Even better is developing a taste for things that you don’t have a choice over. Since you already have to eat everyday, why not develop a taste for cooking? Since you have to bathe, develop a taste for soap. A taste for exercise. A taste for pain. A taste for winter. Bring meaning into everything you do - especially the things you can never get out of.
To eat healthily is to eat a variety of foods. A healthy emotional life also involves feeling a variety of emotions. A full life is not a “happy” life. A full life is an emotional life; one where we feel the full range of human emotions. At any moment in time we can identify the emotion we are feeling, recognize the value of such feelings and imbue every moment of life with value.