Happy

"Happy people don't try to make other people miserable," I said to Em yesterday, "miserable people try to make other people miserable." He started to disagree with me, then stopped. I don't know whether he decided to agree, or just decided it wasn't worth an argument. Maybe both. Nonetheless, I've been thinking about it ever since, going back and forth on if I actually believe this. I think I do.

Sometimes happy people make other people miserable, but I do not think that they try to. Happy people are too busy doing awesome things to do things that are not awesome. Like making people unhappy. I don't think they would be happy if they were in the business of making people miserable. You don't see happy evil overlord (okay, maybe the Despicable Me guy, but he was mostly happy after he stopped making people miserable).

Maybe happy is a bad term to use. Everyone has been tossing the term happy around lately. Its a word people like to use when they talk to young 20somethings who have their whole lives ahead of them. "Are you happy?" they ask, and, "will that make you happy?" or, my favourite, "will you still be happy with that decision in ten or twenty years?" I'm not convinced that this "happy" thing is all that everyone makes it out to be. I think if happy were everything, I would drop out of school and become a barista and learn to play bass. A bass-playing barista. With blue hair. I would probably try to start a band. It would be a really terrible band. I would call it "Frying Bryan". I would be a blue-haired, bass-playing barista in Frying Bryan. My entire life would be a tongue twister. I don't know if that would make me happy, either, but that would probably be my first attempt at the whole happy thing. I'm not positive about the happy thing, though. Being happy seems pretty trite.

I would rather be satisfied. I'd rather be joyful. College is probably one of the least happy things I've ever done. Surviving Systematic Theology I was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done (and it's sequel is coming Fall 2013). I don't know that I'll ever be "happy" about finishing school. I'm not convinced I'll ever look back and say "I'm happy I did that, fellows." When I'm old I am going to call people "fellows", though. I digress. The point is, well, I do it because its satisfying. Learning things means something. It's important. I will probably look back and say it was satisfying and necessary and important. And I think that is enough.

Satisfied people don't make other people miserable. People who can look back on their life and say that everything was worth it, that everything was satisfying and necessary and important don't doubt others' ability to do the same. I want to be one of those old people who believes young people can do anything. I am trying to be a young person who believes I have the chance to do anything. There's too much hope and potential in the world to waste time telling other people why they shouldn't or can't live the lives they've imagined. There's enough other people doing that already, after all. I'll let the miserable people make other people miserable. I'll work on living a life I can be satisfied with.