Happiness: A Better Perspective

In a recent blog on Harvard Business Review, a blogger astutely observes:

"Happy" people are some of the dullest people I know. And yet happiness is the state to which so many of us doggedly aspire.

I have often talked (both here on the blog and within in-person conversations) about enjoying the "Happy Josh" and enjoying when Josh is in his "happy place." While maybe aspirational, how limiting.

What makes Josh a beautiful human being is *all* the emotions he exhibits, even when happiness isn't anywhere within his grasp. A while ago, when asked what attracted me most to Josh (enough to marry and stay married for 17 years), my reply was that Josh loves me for who I am, not who he wants me to be. He accepts all the crazy emotions, obstinance on certain topics, irrational arguments, overly cheery demeanor in attempts to bring everyone in the household up, slave driver tendencies...I could go on and on, but I'll spare you.

Josh has good reasons to not be happy right now. He's hurting most of the time unless he's taken enough pain medications to dull the aches. He's tired because he doesn't sleep well. He worries about why the pain is back after the "reprieve" during chemotherapy. The neuropathy in his hands and feet seems to be getting worse. Radiation has only slightly lessened the pain in his lower back and somehow just a few minutes under the beams doesn't seem at all adequate. Time without a visit to MD Anderson feels strange (the next trip isn't until November) and somehow out-of-routine.

But despite all this, he gets excited about working on the conversion of our back patio into dining room, pauses a TV show to really look at the nice living room and cabinets to gather ideas for that next project, and details out all the mistakes made in the construction of any cabinet. He challenges others with good questions and his own ponderings about the meaning of life. He throws the football with his son. He goes faithfully to his daughter's every soccer game and even helps out at practices more often than he really feels like doing. He smiles at and with me, encourages me.

I was talking with Josh this week and let him know that I wished I could switch places with him. For two reasons, really. One to take away the pain from him and bear it myself instead. Two to see how I would handle the situation as the fighter not the cheerer.

We're still on the long journey, the marathon with no known finish line. The quote from a Vietnam POW included in the aforementioned blog post provides great perspective: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."