Helen Keller who was the world's most famous blind, deaf, and dumb kid until Tommy the pinball wizard came along, had every reason to not be happy. Let's face it: life screwed her. But she says:
If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.
I'll repeat the salient point:
I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy,
Being happy is easy for some people, and if it is a duty, they carry it out without difficulty. Most of them don't know, or don't think about the fact that sooner or later the sun will go cold and freeze the earth, or go nova and burn all to cinders, and no matter what the universe will suffer heat death and that means (as far as we know) that no matter what we do, everything is ultimately going to turn to shit. Some people are happy because they are born with a nervous system that allows them to be aware of these and other unpleasant realities and dismiss them.
But some of us have to work hard to be happy, and knowing that it's a duty, a solemn responsibility might help.
I came to this conclusion late in life, in fact after I had already taken responsibility and decided that I needed to do something about my life. If there is a turning point in my "quest for the good life" it's when I realized what I had to do in order to enjoy it.
Enjoying
Most people think that enjoying an experience means taking joy from the experience. I realized that enjoying could mean something different: putting joy into it. If you can learn to en-joy things, but put joy into things, then you can take joy from whatever goes on.
Consider word origins. The prefix en- is used in the following ways:
| definition: | for example: |
| put into or on | engulf, enmesh |
| bring into the condition of | enlighten, embitter |
| intensification | entangle, enrage |
So en-joy can mean: to put into joy; to bring into the condition of joy. to intensify joy. In other words, enjoy doesn't mean you take away joy (though you could). It's something you can bring, put in, intensify. Enjoying is an act of creation--not an act of consumption.
It's possible to be the beneficiary of a lot of joy you did not create, and that's not a bad thing. At the U2 concert I went to last year, 85,000 people showed up with their joy. And so did I. We filled that stadium with our joy. And we all magically walked away with more joy than we started with. Gogol Bordello routinely does that for me as well.
Now you might be able to actually enjoy something when you had no hand in bringing the joy, or putting the joy in, or intensifying the joy, but it's a riskier bet than if you come with your own joy. And if instead of bringing joy you bring suspicion, hurt, wariness, blame, worry, or just plain old conservatism, there's good odds that you're not going to enjoy what happens. How can you?
I learned this lesson a couple of years ago, and got myself to enjoying everything that happened. Even things that kind of sucked can be enjoyed. You're really into enjoyment when you can say: "I never threw up on a boat before! That was interesting!" Or "I've never had burnt waffles before, so how do I know I won't enjoy them." That's my hero.
Enjoying things makes life better--more enjoyable, you might say. It makes it better for you--and as a side benefit for everyone around you. It's not just a pleasure, though. I believe in what Helen Keller says. It's a duty. If everyone made it their job to bring joy to every occasion what a great world we would have.
I believe that "enjoy-ment" is a skill. You get enjoyment when you put the effort in. When you don't, you might bet lucky, or out might get unlucky. You've let it go out of your hands.
Enjoyment is a teachable skill. And if someone cares to work at it, it's a learnable skill. Some people are born with a natural ability to enjoy--they can get better, And most important, they can inspire others--as I am inspired right now.
Others find it harder. They have to work hard to be any good at all. I was a pretty miserable kid, but I learned over years to enjoy many things--and ultimately (before I forgot how important it was) I learned how to deliberately and diligently enjoy every thing. Right now I'm enjoying writing this. And I'm also enjoying sleeplessness, which normally I hate.
You can decide to bring joy to anything. And if you do, then you can enjoy anything at all. That's the decision I've rediscovered and re made. I recommend it to you.
I hope you will decide to enjoy everything that is. Sometimes it's tricky, and sometimes it's hard. But I believe it's worthwhile. But you can also decide differently. Your can decide to take joy from an occasion only if it meets some standard. Or is someone else brings enough joy, you might take some away. These are all fine choices, but I think that learning how to bring joy, to invest joy leads to a better life. I hope you take responsibility for being happy as a duty, and that you en-joy that.
I hope you enjoy!
