IV.I.I- Balance
IV.I.I
BALANCE
Just like that, a new phase of my life had started. I stopped smoking and started working out. My confidence skyrocketed and I also started feeling very chipper and chirpy, bright and shiny. I guess what I’m trying to say is that with great physical health comes… great mental health. Thank you. Thank you very much. I know, I know, very catchy. Took me seconds to come up with that one!
Up until then, the ‘bright and shiny me’ most people knew was mostly a façade. Not one I kept up intentionally; it was just automatic. Before, whenever I would have a problem or would be feeling particularly dark, I’d write down everything I’d be feeling and process everything all by myself. No need to introduce third parties. I used to be bright and shiny on the outside, dark and dreary on the inside, and now I was facing a crossroads. I knew reconciling my melancholic personality to this new one would be a challenge. I always knew there was as much a place for misery as there is for bliss in life.
Maybe it’s because I romanticised it, or maybe it’s because I found happiness to be overrated. The whole “happiness is for the mediocre” thing. It kinda goes hand in hand with a common saying – that ignorance is bliss. The ignorant is happily mediocre. To have that as your goal in life is just too mundane, too pedestrian – or, as Nietzsche would put it, contemptible. Regardless of how much I had changed, regardless of who I used to be and who I happened to be at that particular point in time; I always wanted to be one thing – to be extraordinary. Growing up, I wanted to become many things; a wizard, a scientist, an Egyptologist, a teacher, an actor, a lawyer, an innkeeper and, finally, a doctor. But whatever it was, all I have ever wanted was to be anything but ordinary.
Unfortunately, up until then, the two were mutually exclusive for me. Happily ordinary or miserably extraordinary. To let myself be happy would have meant letting go of my standards and my comfort zones. Jeopardizing that meant jeopardizing everything else – my studies, my relationships, my entire outlook on life. And so, any time I’d deviate from that, I’d find myself gravitating back towards my baseline.
As miserable as I used to be, I never felt like I was worse off than most people surrounding me. You see, their happiness seemed fake, transient, almost hollow. I’d observe them from the side-lines, always wondering whether they were truly happy. And then I’d end up wondering… What exactly is happiness?
The Oxford dictionary defines happiness as ‘a positive emotion relating to good fortune, pleasure and success’. To me, this seems a bit dry and shallow. In my opinion, Wikipedia does a better job at defining it: ‘Happiness can be described as either a positive feeling ranging from contentment to intense, sheer joy’ or ‘a descriptive term for life satisfaction and fulfilment’. Aristotle goes as far as describing four types of happiness:
- I. Laetus: Happiness from material objects that is most often transient and short-lived. It is the most basic kind of happiness; visceral and raw. The pleasure that comes with endorphins after a sprint, with being high on drugs, with getting a good massage. In excess, this leads to lust, gluttony and sloth. When it is unattainable? Wrath and misery. A feeling I understood all too well as a hedonist.
- II. Felix: Happiness from comparison with other people. It is the feeling that comes along with crossing the finish line first. The mom who’s ecstatic because her kid got an A in the science fair. The guy who’s over the moon because he finally managed to beat Calamity Ganon. In excess, this leads to pride. The opposite leads to envy and greed.
- III. Beatitudo: Happiness from doing good. It’s the feeling of satisfaction you get when you help an old lady cross the road, when you save a patient’s life, when you give money to a homeless guy. In excess, this leads to self-importance and conceitedness. When deficient, it often leads to selfishness and egoism.
- IV. Sublime Beatitudo: Happiness from fulfilment. The by-product of a fulfilled life; a state of flourishing. I like to compare this to Eudaimonia.
It goes without saying that if happiness can be classified, so can its recipients. Happy people, as I observed, come in different shapes and sizes too:
- The naïve: The ‘ignorance is bliss’ cohort. The ones who are just happy without ever questioning it. I used to look at these people with so much unamusement. So ordinary. So… boring.
- The blissful: The ones who are constantly happy, no matter what. They are optimists and nothing ever seems to get to them – not even the worst tragedy.
- The chasers: The ones who are always actively looking to be happy. Most of the time, it would be a very transient, very fake happy. They do whatever is in their power to be alienated from bitter reality in whatever way, shape or form.
- The dreamers: What do they want to be when they grew up? Happy. Nothing but words in the wind. What if that time never came to be? Sorry to be cliché but hey, life’s not about the destination, aye?
- The indifferent: The ones who have no expectations. Que sera, sera. Life has both its ups and downs, so why bother chasing one when both are inevitable?
- The nihilists: There is no such thing as happiness. If there is it, it’s probably just an illusion – something ephemeral and deceptive.
I, for one, always felt indifferent to happiness. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was a hedonist by all accounts. The laetus kind of happiness was my jam. I smoked and I drank and I was a slave to my inner instincts; the ones who wanted immediate, gratifying pleasure right there and then. But the long-term kinda happiness everyone seemed to prioritise? Not my cup of tea.
I never really got off competition and the feeling of satisfaction that comes with doing good was always tainted with that pang of selfishness you feel after, so for all intents and purposes, felix and beatitudo could go screw themselves. That’s how it went on until I discovered my passion for medicine. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. It was me starting my journey towards Eudaimonia. It wasn’t this immediate, sheer, intense kind of joy. It was a constant low buzz kind of happiness; not the overt, ecstatic kind of happiness. A state of happiness that lived in harmony with a state of misery for years on end. I was sad, but I was also happy.
And now, suddenly, that misery kind of vanished. I had gotten over the mental rut over the previous years and now I was targeting the physical one. Was that what had been holding me back? My physical health started improving after I quit smoking and started working out. I’d wake up full of energy, full of life. I’d look in the mirror and not only did I not want to barf, I actually liked the person who looked back at me and I’d smile at my own reflection like an idiot. A happy idiot.
I realised that slowly, my baseline mood was improving. That that extra bit of happiness was making me feel much better in general. I was studying much more efficiently. My friends said I wasn’t being as douchey as usual. I wasn’t tired all the time. I realised that what I had previously thought of as my one hundred percent felt like only half of what I could do now. That comfort zone I was so sure of? It was all a trap. And it had me stuck. Over the past few years I had set the ball rolling. I got into medicine, started travelling, came out as bi, made new friends, lost old ones, and only god knows what else. My life was barely recognisable. From rock bottom to sky high just like that. With my new lease on life, everything felt very different. I finally let myself be happy for the first time. I said yes to yes, yes to more and yes to happiness.
I wanted the ball to keep on rolling. Hell, I wanted the ball to roll even faster – for me to experience new things. And that’s what I did.
Until it all got too much again. Turns out sky high could actually be just as bad as rock bottom. That constant state of elation allowed no room for negativity. All the pent-up misery that wasn’t being let loose set itself free on its own. That’s when everything came crashing down. I reached a point where it all got too much, it was overwhelming and I was burnt out. I tried to slow down the ball but I couldn’t. And so I jumped off of it. I crept back to my comfort zone. I became a recluse, I started smoking again and got back to being a miserable old grouch.
Only this time I knew better. I had experienced bliss. I knew it was much better than to be miserable all the time. I knew what I stood to lose. I had no excuses. And when it all got to be too much again? It was much easier to start over. The key, I realised, is the same as always. That damned balance. Too much of one thing; be it bliss or misery, is always a bad thing. Balance… and maintenance. It takes work and effort to maintain this balance. Not something that’s achieved once and kept on for perpetuity.