[Seth Says] Settling For Happiness
I know, weird concept, right? Isn't happiness one of those unattainable sky-high goals? Don't you need things to be going much better in order to be happy? (Wouldn't the only time you'd "Settle For Happy" be when you know Doc is smarter and Bashful is better looking but you're trapped in a game show where you're forced to marry one of the remaining seven dwarves by an evil queen and options are disappearing every second and you just want to avoid being hitched to Grumpy?) (Also, Snow White could never get Doc, a poison apple a day keeps him away.)
But no, happiness is actually much more attainable than that. You can just claim some for yourself even if you didn't "earn" it with perfect victory. There's a whole stoic argument to be made about how circumstances beyond our control will continue to happen and we can control our reaction to them. (But also there are lots of circumstances we could control but as a society have sort of chosen not to which is why everyone keeps dying and having their lives ruined early, which I'm still quite overwhelmed with, but I'll presume all of you are also and don't necessarily need it discussed at length here.)(I have disgust at length.)
For whatever reason, the topic of happiness has reared its head (and headed its rear?)(that's a butthead comment) multiple times for me this week, and what better to talk about?
IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT...
...you're doing much better than most people! Hell, even having a good understanding of what you need to be happy puts you far ahead of most people. Note that I said need, not want; it's very easy to pie-in-the-sky "I'd be happy if I were a billionaire rock star who played for the Red Sox and was dating a supermodel," but the ability to know "I am happy if I can live near the ocean, play guitar at weekly open mics, and spend the occasional evening curled up in a blanket watching bad TV with my best friend" is far more valuable.
A friend of mine went on social media last week talking about his own ruminations on what tangible things might help him find happiness, and he named some items in the general areas I think many of us look to for happiness -- relationship success, career success, etc. -- which certainly resonated. I mentioned to him that for nearly two decades, my website has had blazoned right at the top my own secret to happiness: Frequently eating food you like in the company of people you like. This is undoubtedly why I enjoyed college so much, and although these days my meals with friends are only the rare patio lunch (although we did have japchae just recently!), I get to enjoy tasty food with someone I love every day, which is a key advantage of living with someone you love. (and for that matter, a key advantage of living with a good cook.)
Another thing that makes me happy is sharing my nonsense, and so as long as I'm mentioning my social media shenanigans, allow me to share my online response to the VP debate:
"If you watched the debate, I feel bad for you, son /
I told 99 lies, but they fact-checked one."
--Jay-D
LIES AND COLUMNY
Oh man, remember back when I used to make a column pun every newsletter to introduce my column? Thanks for hanging around, long-time readers!
Anyway, along the theme of not needing perfection to find happiness, this week my column is about finding happiness and success in spite of being bad at things. Yes, it's possible, we're doing it right now! But for more details, I refer you to the column:
How To Succeed While Being Minimally Competent
Believe me, no one is more annoyed at people who say "Just think positive!" than I am (except for maybe people amidst taking covid tests), because it's the least helpful thing to hear when you are feeling unhappy. But also, it's true that all of our lives have good things and bad things, and while I would never suggest that one ignore the bad things or that they don't matter, it is true that focusing on appreciating what is going right does tend to make one happier. (Then again, it's much easier to say that with my privileged life where most things are going well, aside from the world.)(I guess you can just tack an "aside from the world" onto every positive statement I make from now on.)(and an "in bed" on every fortune cookie)(not that I'm making many fortune cookies these days)(Fun Fact: my favorite way to offer a fortune cookie to Debbie is to ask if she wants 8,000 pounds of dessert.)(Yes, I am like this all the time.)
A STRATEGY FOR HAPPINESS
Rounding out my happiness week, a friend from the boardgaming discussion group I used to be a part of recently reached out to me, asking if I could re-link her to an article I'd written a few years back about using boardgaming strategy to find happiness. This (non-paywalled!) article was originally going to be a whole book, but nobody wanted to pay me for a book, and having self-published a few books that made no money, I decided that in the words of George W Bush, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Anyway, if you want to know how I approach happiness (aside from eating tasty food), here's:
How deckbuilding in Dominion helped me find real-life happiness
HAPPY 'N STANCE
That's the haps ("Life is like a happycane, here in Hapsburg...") for this newsletter, and if you've actually read this whole thing then I'm happy about that, and hope that perhaps at least one of you found something that might help you be happier too. As always, I thank you for reading, will be back in two weeks with another column, and may round out my evening with some tasty leftover noodles of deliciousness.
Living a wonton and carefree existence,
Seth