AS A young boy, I grew up watching my guakong in his natural work/life habitat. In a Chinese family business, the two are intertwined; you cannot have a life outside work that you are literally born into. So I was always fascinated by the way he navigated his way through this (in my perception) unique arrangement of things. He always had, as we put it right now, his “game face” on, as when emergencies came, he would usually be the one on-call to solve it. And yet, from the moment I was born to the moment he passed, his spirit was always light, like having the weight of a company on his shoulders didn’t really bother or strain him that much. He was always happy, and so I thought that was the entire point of life: to always be happy.
Thirty-one years later, and after uncountable Happy Meals (sorry, McDo), I realize that happiness only scratches the surface of what we are supposed to make of life.
I recently got to read “Everything Is F*cked” by Mark Manson, and his take on happiness was one that resonated with me on so many levels. You see, humans are naturally wired to be at a “seven” (as in a seven out of 10) for the majority of their lives—our bodies’ way of being at an emotional equilibrium. When something good happens, the high from being happy (an 11 out of 10, obviously) slowly wears off after a few weeks, and we normalize back to seven. Likewise, when a traumatic event hits us, the one or two out of 10 slowly rises back up to seven as we cope and adjust with it. The danger comes when people are always out to recapture that “high” and never want to come down. Biologically and emotionally, that’s just impossible. So then, if happiness, which is fleeting, is not to be the center of what we shape our lives around, then what is?
It is, as Manson puts it, “finding a worthy cause to suffer for.” It is inevitable that life will suck—welcome to the real world. What gives it purpose is finding a need or concern in the world that we can devote our time and effort to, even if it will hurt and stress us. It is living not for ourselves.
I think that this was why my guakong could stay positive and joyful through everything. He found his cause was to raise his family and company to be good stewards of the Filipino-Chinese community, and so he merely acknowledged the strain that this would give him as a necessary evil. I think of him fondly (and still miss him) as I try to find my own “worthy cause” to suffer for.
Reconsider your pursuit of happiness and instead make it a pursuit of meaning and fulfillment.