​Today I ponder happiness. Is true happiness attainable? If I were to ask you this very moment, “Are you happy?” What would be your answer?

Sometimes I wonder if happiness exists, wholly or truly. Many will say that in order to feel happiness, we must feel the pain of its opposite. That THAT is one of life’s great paradoxes. The myriad colors of emotion. I hear that sort of reasoning often. But I can honestly say that I know feelings without their opposites, love without hate, for instance. And so, that theory doesn’t often hold up, even though it’s comforting and makes perfect sense to me. Is it just a way we keep ourselves from going rogue or crazy or off the deep end? That we must always come up with plausible explanations for things that often can’t be explained.

I can’t think of a time I’ve ever “hated.” I’m being quite sincere here. Maybe it is because our parents always told us NEVER to use that word: “Rosemary. You may dislike something but you never say you hate.” Sound familiar?
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I’m starting to think there is no lasting happiness, that maybe from a young age, we've been sold a bill of goods, and maybe that’s the thing. Maybe nothing lasts but we have glimpses of it. Does it mean I’m unhappy? Or is it just another word. Sad. Disappointed. Unfulfilled.  Bored. And are they only moments, like every moment is? No moment lasts, and therefore, no feeling lasts? Like this one, right now, already gone with each stroke of my keyboard. Poof. Like childhood, gone.  Maybe it’s just about change. And maybe change is a form a happiness. And maybe without change, we feel ‘unhappiness.’ Maybe it’s time I think about a change. Or perhaps we’re always chasing happiness. Maybe happiness is nothing but a hollow, chocolate bunny. There’s nothing inside happiness. It tastes sweet, but maybe it’s just…boring. Empty. Superficial. You know?
I think a better word or phrase might be peace or peace of mind. Contentedness. But then does that mean we become complacent? Perhaps that’s just it. We want the chocolate. It tastes good, but after we have a taste or worse, become satiated, we ‘feel’ the most unhappy? Are feelings even real?
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And so, I circle back. Maybe happiness is just an illusion. Maybe happiness doesn’t exist. Maybe we don’t want it to, because maybe, just maybe, happiness means we’re dead.