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Am I happy?
Like with many non-rhetorical questions, the answer is not simple. I could say “yes” and I wouldn’t exactly be lying… but nor would I if I answered “no”.
A common temptation when asked this question is to evaluate how good your life is, to add the good parts and subtract the bad parts, and to answer according to that. However, that is not the reply to the actual question; after all, I wasn’t asked how good my life was, was I? My happiness is certainly affected by my life, but, in fact, it’s inside me. I’m sure that there are many people with much better lives who are completely miserable, and there are also people who you might think have reasons to be suicidal, and yet are as happy as one can be.
You’ll note that I have so far avoiding answering my own question. 
But, tackling it now…
… No. Not really.
I’m not miserable, depressed or actually sad. I smile and laugh a lot each day, look forward to many things either in the immediate future or in a more distant one, and love to be alive. Yes, there are times when the simultaneous problems become too much for me to handle and I “panic”, but that doesn’t tend to last long (though girlfriends have suffered in the past for being close to me at those times…).
But I don’t have a lot of what I want, have a lot of problems I don’t want, and I’m disappointed in general with my life right now. I keep thinking to myself: it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Not at my current age. I had always imagined me in a completely different situation: living with the love of my life, a kid or two, no money problems, perhaps my own business, and working at home (possibly in a much nicer place than the one I live in). Instead, I look at my life and, while the story is far from over yet, I see distinct signs of what can honestly only be called “failure”. And, no, I’m not blaming anyone (even “bad luck”) but myself. For details, see the entire “my baseline” series.
Now, by solving the problems and achieving the goals described in the rest of the series, I will certainly be a lot happier. Not because of material gains or “status” (I don’t really care about the latter, in fact), but because I will not be disappointed with myself. And I guess that’s the most important thing.
Still, it’s possible that I will also (above and beyond the call of duty, so to speak) have to revise my idea of “happiness”. Time will tell…
Goals:
If you guessed “to be happy”, give the man (or woman) a cigar.
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The style of writing is very familiar to me. Have you written guest posts for other blogs?
Nope.
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