by Lisa Cara

Created on: August 29, 2009

Happy people are productive people. According to our Helium voting results, most agree with this statement. I assume that what first leaps to the mind concerning productivity is a job, career or position. From there, I get lost in the connections people make between earning a living, and happiness. Truthfully, this statement is open to much more interpretation than just what a person does as a means to survive, as is the idea of happiness, itself.

We all talk about being happy, what, or who would be the ticket to happiness. We try to make others happy, we expect people, events, things, wealth or success to make us happy. Then there is the obligation to support ourselves and families through occupation-and success, measured by how well we do so, is the 'reward' for diligent, productive employment. We even have the right to the 'pursuit of happiness', but does this equate happiness with productivity?

Everyone is happy or unhappy for all sorts of reasons-generally verbalized as the result of outside influences. This is a false internal belief-happiness is a state of mind generated by the mind and influenced by feelings. Both are personal and individual and come only from a way of thinking. Happiness is not achieved by any external force or action, but by thoughts colored by emotional state, which ultimately, is also chosen. Many people believe-through conditioned and learned behaviors-that they have no control over being happy, or that through some current desire being met they will be happy. Sadly, that joy is temporary, it ends with achieving said desire-and the formation of the next desire out of the lack of lasting happiness with the previous. We are taught to be productive, obedient workers, and we are promised success and happiness for compliance. There is an implication that conforming will bring happiness.

There is an abundance of very productive people, who are by no means happy. And there are people who are very happy, but not productive in a societal sense. If I think about it, I was happy at the birth of my children, observing animals, doing random acts of kindness, participating in meaningful, to me, activities, new things learned, when contented. After careful thought, I have realized that happiness is a result of feeling completely at ease with myself, living and acting in accordance with my own moral compass, choosing to be simply me, free of guilt , resentment, and fear. I can not expect anything outside of my mind to make me happy, just as I cannot expect to make someone else happy. In fact, trying to do so, unhappiness is generally created on both sides out of unfulfilled expectations. Seriously, it is one thing to have realistic expectations of oneself-we generally do not make them outside of our capabilities; and they provide goals to strive for, but quite another to bear the responsibility of meeting expectations imposed by another, which more often than not lead to disappointment and misplaced guilt. The few times it appears to happen, do not create lasting contented happiness either-that is another expectation, and does not necessarily mean both parties are happy.

Lastly, a person who appears happy and productive, may be putting on an act, because negative attitudes are unacceptable in public-we prefer the fiction to the truth.

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