By Ng Dawin (25A01D)
I am one of those people who never seems to be in a good mood. It’s not that I am depressed or anything—my friends will tell you about my twisted sense of humour and my penchant for cracking odd jokes—but I have never been an optimist who smiled my way through life.
The fact of the matter is that I am a neurotic who gets upset easily. I really can’t help it. For example, if I were eating at a fancy French restaurant with my friends, I’m liable to worry about the money I spent, or the time I could have spent doing work instead of waiting for the slow service.
Of course, my sort of attitude puts off a lot of people. I am told that I am too nihilistic for my own good, and that I ought to be more enthusiastic about life. “Smile more”, says my CCA mate. “Be thankful”, says the Caifan aunty. “Worry less”, says the primary school teacher I haven’t seen in 8 years, after telling me I sound melancholic from the way I said “happy teachers day”.
As frustrating as it is, they are not wrong.
I wish I could be happy all the time. Happiness has been found to lead to better mental health and concentration, and its contagious nature means that these benefits are spread to everyone around you.
Besides, it’d do me much good to get rid of the crippling anxiety which keeps me in bed past 12 noon and all the other negative emotions—but is that really possible? How does one maintain a good mood for such a long time? Are there any pills to help you?
All of us have probably asked ourselves these questions. And I doubt anyone has come to a conclusive answer, because there’s simply too much inherent sadness in life to be eradicated.
But rather than despairing over these ambiguous questions like me, it seems that most people choose to avoid it entirely: Wearing expensive clothes, eating good food, indulging in gaming marathons, queuing for the latest iPhones – if you buy everything that makes you happy, it follows that you’ll never have to be unhappy, right?
I tried this capitalist ideal of happiness last week when my friend persuaded me to go to the Japanese restaurant instead of the food court. His rationale was that “good food would lead to better outcomes”, and somehow this was convincing enough to set me back 25 dollars.
As you’d expect, the food was good. Not life changing or anything, but good. The ramen was creamy and the karaage was crispy – but they weren’t enough to stop me from getting hungry after a few hours. And because I had blown all my money on lunch, I had to settle for cup noodles for dinner. Surprisingly, they tasted as good as the restaurant food to my empty stomach.
That was enough to make me realise how stupid this “indulge yourself to be happy” thing was. While I don’t deny the restaurant food didn’t bring me some joy, it was just too fleeting to be fully cherished. And really, the same can be said for a lot of other products: Clothes, electronics, toys, holidays – each time we get something new, we’ll be happy for a few days or weeks if we’re lucky and poof – just like that it’s gone.
Psychologists call this phenomenon the hedonic treadmill. It claims that no matter what positive events happen to us, we will always return back to our pre-existing happiness levels, leading to a craving for more happiness. It’s like a drug addiction, where every subsequent sobriety feels like a low compared to our current highs.
And from my cup noodles experience, perhaps being happy isn’t about being in a heightened emotional state all the time. Rather, it’s an issue of relativity.
I was hungry before I ate, but full afterwards—and it is precisely this distinction which led to my happiness. The cheap cup noodles wouldn’t have been able to make me feel so good if I weren’t feeling so hungry prior.
In this regard, feeling bad isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It acts as a signal that you ought to do something about your situation. It can push you to make hard decisions, change your habits, pursue commitments and other goals—not for the sake of being happy all the time, but rather being a little happier than you were before.
Yes, the world is still a sad place, but the light has always relied on the dark to exist. There are many challenges to overcome in life that make it worth living. If only we could acknowledge this, then it wouldn’t feel so bad to not be happy all the time.
Heck, knowing this makes me feel like smiling a little.
