When are you most happy?

When I was a child, quite a small child, there was a course that used to be Sun at our church. It was along the lines of “I’m inright, outright, upright, downright, happy all the time … “

The chorus went on to the clear that those who gave their hearts to the Lord would have this everlasting happiness.

That certainly appealed to me as a young child. And as I grew older and departed from the church, I certainly wondered if I was throwing that happiness away. In previously explained circumstances (in an earlier post) I’ve explained why I became disaffected with organised religion. But I have never really replaced that with any other form of belief that manifested self through ritual and adherence to the religious philosophy of a particular organisation. I try to live a good life and experience moments of happiness when something I’ve done for others, be the family, or professional associates and others realise positive outcomes for them. One of my granddaughters recently achieved a score of 92.37% in her Northern Territory Certificate of Education. She was one of only 111 students in the Northern Territory to achieve a score of 90% plus. I was ever so happy for her and rejoice in her success – as I rejoice in the successes of all my children and grandchildren.

I like it when things go well for those I love and those I know. In terms of personal happiness, I feel that to be impacted these days by the fact that the things I did that made me happy as a teacher and Principal, in working with others and putting children first, have largely been disbanded and are no longer priorities.

I would like to be happy with the way education is trending. I would like to be happy with the way society is progressing.

I would like to be happy knowing that the majority of people are well-placed socially, emotionally, “spiritually/morally“, and financially. Sadly, that is far from the case.

It seems to me that a prediction I made over 30 years ago during the conference that looked at futurism, has indeed come to pass.

Participants were urged to consider the future optimistically. There were eight participants at each round table. We were each asked to write a statement of perception about the future. Once done, a participant was to place their prediction in the middle of the table. If those following disagreed, they placed their statement on top of the one with which they disagreed. If they agreed with the statement on top, they placed their statement under the one with which they agreed.

I put mine down first. One by one, the other seven read mine. Everyone left my prediction on top of the pile.

My prediction read.

“The world is not in a good place. It will only get worse, never better. It will spiral downward on every respect. There may be temporary pauses in the downward spiral, but there will never be a reversal in the downward direction.”

This seems to be the way it is turning out. And that gives rise to ever briefer periods of happiness.