170. Asking someone to make us happy is asking them to give what isn’t give-able

I’ve recently heard of a woman in her 60s who’s had 40 years of an unhappy marriage. Her husband has had several affairs and now he’s retiring and tells her she’s just not the woman who can make him happy. He wants to find the woman who will. This woman also says, “If I knew I could find someone who would love me for just who I am, I’d get a divorce.” No one knows what the outcome will be but one thing is guaranteed: if either of these unhappy people is expecting another person to make them happy they’re seeking the impossible. Why? Because no one can give what they don’t have to give. No one can impart happiness to another. Happiness is an attitude, not a commodity you can hand over.

If you’re dating now in these mature years of life believing you’ll be happy if you just find the right man or woman your belief is a sham. Only our perception of the world can bring us happiness. If a partner is needed for happiness everyone who’s single would be unhappy. Yet real life shows us this isn’t true. It can be wonderful to share life with a compatible partner. But unless we bring our own happiness to that relationship we’ll never have it, simply because happiness is never “out there,” it’s always “in here.”

It’s our attitude to let life deliver what it’s going to deliver anyway that frees us from struggle and brings real joy. We’re no longer expecting anything. Instead, we’re just witnessing life and taking it as it comes. That kind of happiness is what I like to call contentment. It’s not some ecstatic experience nor a tremendous “high”. Highs always disappear. They have to. Our emotional systems would burn out if we tried to live in ecstasy forever. Even if we could handle full-time ecstasy it soon wouldn’t be ecstasy any more because we’d get used to it, just like we’re used to the effects of gravity. We don’t think it’s a special miracle that we can let go of something in mid-air and it immediately moves downward, all by itself.

There is one period in everyone’s day when they’re unmistakably happy and content. That’s during deep, dreamless sleep. Everyone loves a good sleep. We’re contented because there’s no thought about how life should be different than it is. In sleep we give up the world, we give up the bed; we give up our body and we give up any sense of “me”. What’s left? Happiness. Peace. Contentment. Ease. No problems.

When we make ourselves happy by dropping judgments and accepting the world as it is, we can also stop wanting someone else to do our job. From that space of peace without craving we’re much more likely to find a relationship that will be fulfilling. We’re no longer pressuring our date or partner to be the source of our joy. When we realize that life has always lived itself without our input we relax and settle back. Then maybe for the first time we savor the fulfillment and simple joy of just being. It’s our nature state.

Copyright © 2007 Chuck Custer