When I think about a conventionally happy life in the first world, I imagine a life including good friends, productive work, occasional friendly contact with one’s family of origin, and possibly marriage, children, and church. But I know people who have some or all of these things who appear profoundly unhappy: tense, angry, and resentful. On the other hand, I see people whose lives do not conform in any meaningful way to the conventional standard who are cheerful and unafraid.
Of course there are many who lament their lack of these trappings, and there are many who are comfy in their conventionality. But I still wonder whether there is any correlation between one’s willingness to set aside the idols of our culture and one’s happiness.
There is a whole canon of theory on happiness, much of it supposing a real link between happiness and self-determination. And certainly nothing can be worse than the lot of a slave, whether one is a slave to an individual or to the ideals of a society. But recent research suggests we all have a “set point” of mood to which we eventually return regardless of what changes in our surroundings, in apparent contradiction to the theory. So I’m hoping to get some more ideas through anecdote.
What I want to know is: how happy are you? How conventional are you? (According to either the above definition or your own, if you like.) And --most importantly – how much do you care whether your life conforms to the conventions of your culture?
I’m not particularly happy right now, but I’m in a period of major upheaval. I went straight through school and grad school without looking right or left. Now I’m heading towards a full-time job and my own house in a new town. All by myself. Somehow, I neglected to get an Mrs. degree, and I’m kicking myself. I want to be married and have kids way more than I want this research job–but then, given that I’m by myself, I sure am glad that I have such a cushy well-paid position.
I think it’s just human nature to be dissatisfied. If you conform, you inevitably end up making some choices that are wrong for you, which leads to future unhappiness. If you don’t conform, you’re unhappy while you’re deciding not to conform and you are then periodically unhappy for the rest of your life, wondering if things would have been easier if you’d conformed.
The path not taken, you know. Happiness ultimately consists in letting go of past possibilities and accepting what you do have.
Let me see. I’m married and have children, a house, many good friends, and a good relationship with my family (we live in the same town). I go to church, but it’s a weird church by American standards. I’m not the stereotypical member of my church, but I doubt that anyone is. I’m a librarian, but I only do substitute work sometimes, which I enjoy. I’m a SAHM and I homeschool my daughters. I have plenty of work to do and I enjoy it, but I guess it’s not exactly what you’d call conventional, the homeschooling part anyway. Within the homeschooling community in my town, I’m the oddball who will talk with anyone but doesn’t quite fit anywhere; to put it succinctly, I’m not evangelical, I’m not a hippie, and I’m the only classical homeschooler I know IRL.
So, I dunno. I do a lot of conventional stuff, I guess, by the OP definition. I do a lot of unconventional stuff. I can’t say I think about what might be one or the other, or where I stand. But I’m a happy person with a life I enjoy and a spouse I feel lucky to have landed with.
I’m happy and probably pretty unconventional. I’ve been with the love of my life for about 7 years. We got married three months ago so she could get on my health insurance, but we would have been fine without the piece of paper. I don’t know which country I’ll be living in come January, we have a house, but are rarely there. Most everything can be packed up in two bags, and I’ll probably change employers every two or three years until I wrap it all up.
I don’t know if there is a link between convention and happiness, I just know what works for me.
I also think it’s human nature to be dissatisfied. Why did emotions evolve in the first place? To motivate us. If you don’t feel dissatisfaction, you don’t put out any new effort. Dissatisfaction, though, comes in many flavors - striving and curiosity, to name two of the nicer ones.
Not sure how to measure happiness and conventionality. I think I’m happiest about some ways in which my life is unusual, but also think I’m pretty average in both senses, especially as viewed from the outside.
My set point seems to be ‘happy, with a side-order of occasional crushing clinical depression.’ But, you know, basically happy.
I’ve got a day job, but in a place that allows/encourages me to bring my artistic expression into the workplace, even though it’s a science/math type job. I’ve got a marriage but it’s one of those ‘not conventional’ ones. I don’t have kids and will not. I don’t got religion, and my blood relatives are on different continents from me. I have adequate time to pursue any creative outlet I want.
I’d say I don’t really care whether I conform to the culture around me but that’s only half true; while many things about me are unconventional by middle-class American sitcom standards, I have consistently chosen to live places where nobody really gives a crap about that stuff. I wouldn’t choose to conform, elsewhere, but I’d be less happy without like minded folk around me. I guess I like my culture to conform to me.
To ramble on a bit further - most of the time I feel pretty conventional , and it takes exposure to other parts of the country to see that there are a lot of places where the choices I’ve made and the way I live my life would be seen as outlandish. I take for granted the level of ‘not giving a shit how someone lives their life’ we get around here.
I am quite happy and have been for most of my life. I am very unconventional, and couldn’t possibly care less as to how much or little my life conforms to what other people want.
My theory on happiness? It comes from within. I am not a “cheerful” person in the least. I might even venture enough to call my temperment “morose” most of the time. The thing is, though that happiness isn’t about laughing and smiling all the time – it’s about being content and not having unfulfilled longings. I have very few unfulfilled longings – and those that I do have, I know will be fulfilled someday. I am content and at peace within myself, so material things and other people are unable to affect my happiness for more than a few moments. Someday, those things won’t be able to affect me at all, but for now, I am just not that good.
I don’t really care if my response conforms to previous responses, but I’ll go ahead and state the same thing completely independent of what others have said - I don’t care if my life conforms to conventions.
P.S. what is this, Night of the Living Zombie Threads? (happening in GQ too)