The Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness is a wonderful thing. Okay let me rephrase that “American-feel-good-movie-statement”. Happiness is a really strange thing. I mean think about it. Like really thoroughly. What is happiness to you. Winning the lottery and getting rich? Sure the feeling that you have when you realize that you are the one, that lucky one, that won a gigantic amount of money while thousands, nee, millions of other persons bought a lottery ticket as well. That is happiness. But after that? You’re still the same human being, only with more money. But as a famous saying goes “money can’t buy you happiness”. 

Is happiness than the birth of your first child, or not to affect the other children you possibly have, the birth of a child? Well of course there is happiness in that moment. You are happy that everything, hopefully, went well. You are happy that their is a little child that shares your and your loved one’s blood and DNA (read habits), but after that life goes on. Of course you have someone to really care about, someone who is different than a good friend or even your loved one, but shitty things still happen after that. It is just a snapshot. A short moment of happiness coming back over time.
Okay I will try to keep it closer to myself, because to be fair I have never won the lottery (and the thought of it gives me, yes I admit it, a short feeling of happiness or better freedom) and I don’t have a child as well. So maybe bad examples from my point of view.

So, let’s try again. Why do I state that happiness is not a wonderful thing, but rather a strange thing? To try and explain that, I’ll pose you a question: What makes you truly happy? What is the one thing or maybe what are the two things that make you happy? 
I can’t come up with an answer. I mean, I can, but it is not a fitting answer to the question. A game of FIFA can make me truly happy. But when I lose it I get annoyed, play more of them and end up with smashing my controller on the ground after I turned off the PlayStation in the middle of a game. Am I happy? I wouldn’t say so.
Watching a good series on Netflix can make me utterly happy. After a long day of studying, working or just random suffering I long to a moment on my own, earplugs in and just losing myself in the fictional story of a random director/screenwriter. But after three episodes a voice inside my head tells me that I have to cook, go for a run or do something “useful” what ever that is. Am I happy after I binge-watched half a season of this series and it is too dark, cold and late to do any of the things that popped in to my head while watching the series? 

Or does it make me happy when I have to work really hard for something. To finish something. I mean when I go for a long run afterwards I’m feeling really good. You could almost call that happiness. And after I finished both my bachelor and master thesis I felt so free, no, relieved and even a little bit proud that I managed to complete such hard assignments. You could call that happiness, true, but does that than mean that happiness always requires a big effort? Can’t it just be easy to feel some happiness?

I just went to the bathroom, because you know food needs to go out, and when I came back I red the first part of this blog. And I have to admit it sounds a bit dark. Not if you considered I am for example a singer songwriter in a really dark period of his life, or a recently dumped young boy, no, then this text would be understandable. No, I mean that it is pretty dark for me. I mean the people who know me always tell me I’m the opposite of dark. I’m the guy who always sees a positive way out of a really shitty situation, the guy who always offers a shoulder when you need one to cry on or punch at and then afterwards always find a positive thing to say that makes the shitty situation seem unimportant for a second. And I admit, I am that guy. Not to give myself credit or put a bunch of feathers in my ass, but when your getting older you learn stuff about yourself and you can look in the mirror honestly and when I do that I see the positive, sometimes slightly naive guy that wants the best thing for him and others and will always strive to achieve that for the both of them. 

But again, being far away from all my old duties, my full agenda, my family, friend and loved ones, and everything else that kept me busy (in a positive way!) back home, made me realize some things. And maybe they sound a bit dark at first hearing, but give me some time to explain it. Hear me out. What is happiness? 

I think I learned something about happiness and everything that has something to do with this intriguing topic while being away. I realized this a couple of times now along my trip trough Australia. Because you know, traveling with different people, speaking with them about the same topics and sharing thoughts about everything you can share thoughts about makes you understand things in a different way. It gives you different feelings on one and the same topic. It makes you reconsider things that where once so solid for you. It learns you to broaden your view, your opinion. And most of all it learn you that, as everything else in this world, happiness is versatile. 

Happiness is not A or B. It is even not C. I think (my mam always learned me to say this, because it is my thought and not the truth) you can’t even say “happiness is ...”. Because do you really know what it is until you feel it. And besides that, is it a recipe that is always the same?

Let me give an example that struck me once I really understood what was happening. Last June, in the second month I was here, during our first road trip (with four wonderful Dutchies) I felt really happy. I was finally there where I wanted to be for four years. Finally free. Enjoying all the beauty of this country. But still, after a month I was kind of tired, annoyed and even a bit stressed. Moving on everyday just after sunrise, having to think where to go because it is a road trip so you have to go somewhere. Even the views that where stunning before didn’t really give me that “WOW” feeling anymore. I felt a little bit numb and I wanted a good rest and a “home” to come back to everyday. 

So I got the home in Cairns. And it was heaven. I could eat normal meals again, had a working fridge, could go to museums, lagoons, waterfalls and come home everyday at the same spot to have a lovely dinner and party with my friends. Happiness. Till after three weeks I felt that we had to move again. The things to do ran out, doing absolutely nothing (which was a blessing the first couple of weeks) all of a sudden became shitty and unsatisfying. So we went on a new, splendid unforgettable adventure through the outback and as if life hit the repeat button it all happened again. Excitement, stunning views,  adventure, ultimate happiness, fall-back, not enjoying anymore, longing for peace of mind and boredom. 

It’s a vicious circle wherein happiness at one moment is something utterly beautiful that is there and that you can almost grab as if it is something existing, but a fraction of a second later turns into something that is far far away, unreachable. And more important something that doesn’t come back to you by doing the things you did in the first place to get it. 

And right there is the thing. The thing I “learned” or maybe even the thing I discovered. Happiness isn’t one thing. There is no formula for happiness. And more important happiness or the feeling of being happy changes depending on your surroundings and the people you are with. I mean, with one group of people I travelled looking for the most abandoned places, the most wild and silence camping spots gave us a true feeling of happiness, where with another group we liked to be among people and have conversations with strangers to share and learn from each other. Two totally different things, but both of them led to happiness. To make it even “worse” if I would start travelling with a new group of people now and we would do either one of these things neither of them could give us a feeling of happiness, because you know people are different and circumstances in which your adventure take place are unique as well. 
Earlier on I said something about always having to make an effort to reach happiness and if that was the case if feeling happy could also be something simple. With what I just said both things are true. When you meet new people, start new adventures or when you simply don’t feel happiness anymore as a result of what you are doing, it takes an effort to get that feeling back. That effort can require a lot of talking with those new people to get to know them and to build-up habits and to get to the groups own inside jokes all of it to be happy with each other. That effort can require going back to yourself and asking if this road trip still makes you happy or if you just want to crawl into a blanket or lay on the beach reading a book or streaming a series, although other people expect you to travel, experience and have the time of your life because you know that’s what you’re there for. 

Happiness requires and effort. It also requires courage to be honest to yourself and to don’t mind about what others think. Because you are the only one that knows what makes you truly happy. But besides that, to make it even more complicated (I mean I warned you already in the first two sentences “happiness is a strange thing”) happiness can of course be simple and really small. The last couple of days in Hobart I found happiness in walking through the city on my own, discovering small staircases that led me into hidden parts of the city, getting help from a stranger to find my girlfriend a special present, the look on the face of the guy you travel with when you tell him about your day, the best saying goodbye to a loved one you ever had, the groceries you do in Coles and the thinking about all the delicious meals you can make with those ingredients, the letter you get from that one old friend that you didn’t speak to in person for a long time thanks to your brothers travel mail and of course the looking forward to the festival your best friend always told about. The festival you are going to visit with him and your other friends when you are back home. Those things don’t really require an effort. They are there, they make you feel great, but you have to see and appreciate them.

So yes, happiness is strange. It requires effort. It is sometimes there and sometimes not. But when it is there you have to let it in and embrace it, because who knows it could be gone before you know it. But above all, it is something truly wonderful. And not because those “feel-good-American-movies” tell you, no. It is wonderful because it is strange, versatile and hard, but at the same time easy to feel. It is wonderful because although you write a blog about it to get to the meaning of the thing, you still don’t get it at all. And that’s what makes happiness, nee life, fun. You always have to work for it a bit to get to the core and once you’re their it probably changed already. 

So keep searching, nee, living!

Cheers Kai