The world is so full of a number of things, I ’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Whenever I venture into areas where people congregate I always take the time to look at faces. Most people don’t notice me looking at them because they are either consciously avoiding eye contact, sleepwalking with their cell phones or staring into infinity, lost in their own thoughts, plans and destinations. The people with whom I do make eye contact usually avert their gaze, sometimes quickening their step to avoid a possible encounter. I always smile and quite often I’ll get a smile in return, but many times I won’t get anything back from them. They simply continue on their way, their true faces shielded by a mask of apparent unhappiness.

Cities are interesting enigma. Most folk are on their way someplace: home, work, shopping, movie or a buffet assortment of appointments. Only the homeless seem content to sit, leaning up against a building with their shopping cart full of junk within easy reach, perhaps sipping on a wrinkled paper bag or talking to themselves. But a quick look at their dour faces reveals that they too are not happy. Most of them look as unhappy as everybody else.

When you greet someone you don’t know you might say, “How’s it going?” or “How you doing?” They will always answer with something positive (if they answer at all) even though their dog got hit by a car this morning or their oldest daughter got arrested last night. They don’t want your pity or your intrusion into their lives. And your salutation is just that: a string-of-words greeting without meaning. You likely don’t want to know of their troubles because you have enough troubles of your own to deal with.

The majority of us live in heated and air-conditioned houses. We have hot water on tap and whole rooms dedicated to personal cleanliness. We have huge refrigerators full of food, kitchens full of appliances and if we don’t feel like cooking we can hop in our car and drive to any number of restaurants to choose from an array of international flavors to suit any craving we might care to indulge. We sleep on thousand dollar beds, under down-filled comforters, in a climate-controlled room enveloped in darkness and when we want the darkness to go away we simply flip a switch. We have myriad diversions, from television to video games to books and magazines and long hours of employment that should protect us from any sort of boredom. No king ever had it so good and yet more people are medicated for depression today than at any other time in history.

Why aren’t we all as happy as kings?

In a recent survey, the Centers for Disease Control and prevention (CDC), claims that 9 percent of Americans polled said they felt depressed within the two weeks prior to being questioned. This Time Magazine article claims that 13 percent of Americans are taking antidepressant medications. That’s frank depression we’re talking about here folks, not simple unhappiness. How many more people are choosing to be unhappy do you think?

I say choosing to be unhappy because happiness and unhappiness are choices, not conditions.

If you ask people why they aren’t happy they’ll tell you it’s because their car broke down, their mortgage is due tomorrow, their life isn’t going as planned, their….[insert reason here] They link their unhappiness to a condition in their lives that needs to change before they can become happy. “I’ll be happy when I’m rich,” or “I’ll finally be happy when I fall in love.” What they don’t realize is that happiness is something that is unconditional, something that cannot be achieved from without. It’s an attitude, an inward mental state.

I’ve been guilty of this as well. I love being out in the country away from people. I don’t like going into town or any other situation where there are people everywhere I look. I could quite easily say that I’m unhappy in town and happy in the country and choose to be happy or unhappy depending on the conditions that surround me. That’s just silly, isn’t it? Why would anyone choose to be unhappy?

External conditions contain no inherent bias. I love to go camping. I don’t mind dirt or discomfort as long as my view is of wide open spaces. I choose to be happy in those conditions. Another person would be completely miserable doing that. They choose to be miserable, just as I choose to be happy. The conditions are exactly the same, only our attitudes differ.

This Too Shall Pass

The biggest problem with making happiness conditional is that conditions change. That bowl of ice cream will soon be finished. Your vacation will soon be over. Your lover will leave or even die. Things come and go. Conditions arise to pass away. The conditional world is constantly in a state of flux. Attaching a mental state to anything conditional is folly.

Once you realize that happiness and unhappiness are unconditional, are interior states not attached to outside conditions, that happiness is not a future goal to achieve but a choice to make right now, you can choose to be happy this very second regardless of where you are physically as well as where you are in your life’s journey, your economic state or even your state of health.

One of the happiest people I ever met was a woman patient who came to me for chiropractic care when she was in her late nineties. Her mind was sharp and she used to relate to me the wild times of her youth during the roaring 20s in a beach community in Southern California. Always quick to joke, I invariably felt more content after a short visit from her.

If anyone had a reason to be depressed it was Alta. She developed rheumatoid arthritis early in her life and by the time she was 40 she was relegated to a wheel chair. Rheumatoid arthritis is a bony joint disease and it did not relent until most of her joints had dissolved. She had no shoulder joints at all. Her hands were twisted and deformed. She had artificial knees and artificial hips. She suffered from vertigo that sent her into nauseating dizziness if she changed positions or moved her head too fast. Her suffering had lasted nearly 60 years.

It would seem justified if she chose unhappiness. She did not. Every day, she chose to be happy. She was very devout in her faith and she believed that God had big plans for her in heaven. That was the only crutch she needed. It was an external belief to be sure, but it gave her a reason to choose happiness every day of her life.

Because she was so pleasant and inspiring to be around everyone loved Alta. Her husband was decades gone, her eldest daughter had already passed on and her younger daughter took care of her. When her younger daughter developed Alzheimer’s disease, Alta had to go to the old folks home, as she called it. I didn’t see her after that, but she wrote me a letter on her computer using her index fingers to type it out. In that letter she praised the institution she was in and the wonderful new friends she was making. She truly loved her roommate and spoke highly of the orderly who wheeled her out on the balcony each day so she could see the morning sun and listen to the twittering birds. She was as happy as ever.

Whenever I find myself falling into the trap of attaching my happiness or unhappiness to an external condition I think of Alta and my mood improves.

External conditions are always neutral. They are simply what they are. You charge them when you judge them either good or bad. If you attach your internal state to those judgments you identify with them. Identification to externalities is ego and ego can be a cruel master.

No need to force yourself to like things you don’t like in order to be happy. You are still free to have your opinions and your druthers. You may hate your old car and long for a new one. You may continue to hope for a better job or to meet the love of your life. You are even free to choose to be unhappy if you wish.

Now that you know that happiness and unhappiness are conscious choices you make and need not be dictated by the condition of your life at this moment in time, why would you choose to be unhappy? Happiness is unconditional. Why not simply move in the direction you wish to go and make the choice to be happy during the journey?

Be happy. The choice is yours.

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Pictures all mine