I often wonder what the value of happiness is. There are people who go about life completely miserable yet they continue to live. There are people who are incredibly happy yet take their own lives. So happiness is not the incentive of living. There is only one incentive of living and that is to procreate. That is the reason, or so we’re told, that we were put here in the first place. How can you find happiness in the expectations that you are just a machine put here to keep the species alive? Where is the value in that?
Our physiological needs are only to populate and to tend to, take care of, and ensure that these babies we bring into the world are adapt to handle all of the situations that life* throws at them. Our physiological desires are to find a mate that will be the best at the aforementioned. For a man, they seek a youthful, beautiful woman. Their youth ensures that they are fertile and their beauty (somehow) equates health, i.e. the more beautiful the woman, the healthier the baby. For a woman, they seek an older, “wealthier” mate. Their age means they are able to take care of the woman and their offspring while their “wealth”, which can be measured in more than just monetary terms, represents the man’s ability to provide for his family. These needs and desires are programmed into every human being. Whether or not they know it, these physiological dudes, if you will, are at work every minute of every day.
*This “life” by the way does not give or take nor does it make things better or more difficult. That is what life is. So this existential approach to life is wrong and if anything, only hinders our ability to deal with it.
So if our physiological desires and needs don’t bring about happiness, what does? Ahh an interesting question…
Adult: “Hi Kenzie! What are you doing?”
Child: “I’m eating blueberries! Do you want some?”
Adult: “I can’t have your blueberries silly, I’m at work and you’re at home with daddy and Rikki.”
Child: “Can you come over?”
Adult: “Of course Punkin Head! We’re having a sleep over!”
Child: “Okay good, you need to bring me some crayons and um markers and um oh! Coloring books too!”
Adult: “Okay honey I’ll see you soon!”
If you were to overhear this conversation, you would think that the “adult” was the parent of the “child”. Guess again. She is not related to this child in any way, rather she is the friend of the father of the child. But the happiness that resounds in her voice, her inflections and tones certainly mislead us to believe that she carried that child in her womb for nine months.
So if someone who is unattached to a child can find so much joy in their presence then just imagine how a mother or father feels with their child. My point, I suppose, is to reaffirm what we already know; the fact that we have set stages in life that we are supposed to progress through and that at the completion (or beginning) of each phase, we are brought happiness. Imagine yourself moving from elementary school into middle school. That sense of pride and accomplishment- I bet you were met with those very same feelings when you moved from middle to high school, and then from high school to college. Each of those represents a stage in one’s life. After college, we get jobs and the next stage is getting married and starting a family. This might explain why so many women, even though they felt confined and stymied, were still happy being homemakers. They were, I assume, conflicted by these feelings which only lead to frustration and eventually, the women’s movement was born. But the point is not that we women should sacrifice our jobs for a family, no rather we are sacrificing our happiness for the promise of a career. In the early years following the women’s movement, women still chose family over the option of going to work. Today, women are constantly putting off marriage and child rearing for a power suit and a cubicle. I’m not saying I want to be Susie Homemaker. I want to have a career AND children. So where is the balance? Because if you can’t balance them, the very happiness I’ve been speaking of will vanish into thin air and all you’ll be left with is bitterness and resentment toward your boss, your mate, and/or your children.
I have no suggestions. I can offer no wise words of advice. I am having a hard enough time as it is trying to balance work and school, friends and family. There is no happiness here… or wait? Is there? Although I don’t feel as happy as I did on my first day in high school, I certainly feel content in knowing that I’m at least doing something with myself. Soon I’ll have so much on my plate that this will seem like nothing. In the end, happiness is what you make of it. Physiological obligations and expectations aside, there are plenty of single, childless women who have great careers and couldn’t be happier. The problem is I have yet to actually meet one. Besides the enigma of Samantha on Sex & the City, there is no “real life” super woman who isn’t desperately seeking their soul mate. I think at the heart of every woman, there is a desire (whether that be physiological or otherwise) to find the man of our dreams, settle down in that big house at the top of the hill, with two dogs, a cat, and four kids. So perhaps then, it is the dream itself that keeps our happiness alive.
Or perhaps we truly are in charge of our happiness, just like with our destiny. Or maybe that just depends on who you ask.
