Happiness is not the Goal

Disney’s Inside Out is one of my all time favorite movies. It touches on something that is rarely touched on, and it does an incredible job at explaining at least one way that I believe depression can take over someone’s life… suppression of emotion.

“What’s wrong?”

The question that teaches us when we are sad, we are wrong. That a rich and fulfilling life must be one that is filled with a long, unbroken chain of happy events and pleasurable moments. It’s not okay to be sad.

THAT is what is wrong. Thinking and teaching each other that sad = broken. While some may tell you that it is okay to be sad, they still get uncomfortable to see you that way. They don’t know how to handle you when you are sad… because they don’t know how to handle themselves when they are sad.

What is your “remedy” to sad days? Do you call up your friends and insist you all go out and find a hot distraction? Do you give yourself a pep talk about how things will get better, to see the light up ahead, to remind yourself that this too shall pass? Do you turn to a higher power and ask for relief, for the burden to be made light, for a blessing of strength to help you carry the load? If you’re anything like me, you’ve done them all… and they have all failed you at some point. When they all fail at once, you find yourself at the bottom, faced with no other options. You might panic. You might “give up.” You might choose to accept some seemingly inevitable fate. Anything to stop the pain.

For me, nothing says “I love you, I trust you,” more, than allowing myself to break down in tears in your presence. Very few are privy to such a display… even my wife rarely, if ever, truly saw that side of me until our marriage fell apart.

But sadness is not the goal either. Nor any single emotion. The goal is all of them. The goal is a whole heart. One that we are not ashamed of. One that can feel sadness, and feel free to express it. One that can allow us to feel joy, in spite of what might happen at the end of that joy. One that does not apologize for feeling anything. One that takes each moment in its fullness, knowing that it is but a moment.

From this is born the adage to live for the moment, or in the moment. But even that message has been distorted. It teaches us to chase the “good” moments. To search out natural (or unnatural) highs and positive experiences. Or it teaches us to be optimistic, to find the silver lining in every storm. Both of these miss the mark. To live in the moment is to allow that moment to overtake you. To surrender your heart to the vulnerable emotions defined by the moment, good AND bad.

The goal is a whole heart. And a whole heart comes from being honest about our emotions and how each moment affects us. Seek to be whole, not happy.