Happiness

Im quite certain that happiness is not the destination in life. I love the feeling of being happy, but I think there are much stronger emotions that make life worth living.

There is a famous quote attributed to John Lennon regarding happiness:

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

It’s a beautiful quote. Happiness is something that we must strive for. Although happiness isn’t something you can do, rather it is only a result of things we do, it is an admirable feeling to want out of life.

Being at home with my family this past week has brought the idea of happiness front of mind. I’m not sure if my family is happy, and that’s okay. But, it has made me wonder whether that matters at all.

From doing difficult events like cycling up pikes peak in Colorado, completing 5 half iron man’s, and now one marathon, I’ve found that for most of my training and competing I’m not very happy at all. Rather, most of it is quite painful. The pain is often what deters people from doing these events, however I think that’s misguided and myopic.

For me, the pain is a signal. A signal that says something worthy is on the other side. Without fail, every time I crossed the finish line for one of these races, I was almost in tears. It wasn’t happiness I was experiencing. It was satisfaction, fulfillment, joy at completing something I wasn’t sure I was capable of doing.

You don’t need to complete a difficult challenge to experience this though. In an interview with sport psychologist Dr. Jannell MacAulay on my podcast Reflecting Back, she discusses how she finds peace in the little moments of each day. You can also find this idea in her Headspace course titled Mental Push-ups.

Mental pushups are little moments where you train your mind to be present. It is also a tool to come back to the present and experience the fullness of life.

So, I don’t think happiness is the key to a great life. There are stronger emotions out there that are worth striving for, and often times, they are found on the other side of struggle.