Happiness… when the children leave home May 9, 2008
Posted by Geoffrey Wilson in : Health Tips,Meditations,Personal Freedom,Psychology,Wisdom Notes , trackbackAccording to Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of the book ‘Stumbling on Happiness’, the happiness of people goes into steep decline after they have children and is never recovered until they leave home. This is despite investing so much time and energy and money in their children! At a conference in Sydney recently devoted to the exploration of happiness, over 2000 delegates also discovered that the continued accumulation of money did nothing for happiness and interfered with people finding other sources of joy.
The moral of the story is that if you think having a baby will bring you happiness, think again! And this brings us to an interesting point. It begs the question, what is happiness? And, how do you tap into it?
According to the ancient sages, freedom from emotional entanglement is the measure of happiness. So what is emotional entanglement then? In a word, it is very simply ‘attachment’ to either ‘this’ or ‘that’. And most of us spend the bulk of our waking moments dedicated to the preservation of these attachments – whatever they may be – and with whomever. Unfortunately, attachments only serve to strengthen the fear of losing what one has become attached to and this sets in motion the vicious cycle of entanglement.
If happiness is caused, watch out! True happiness has no cause and comes into being quite naturally when the urge to be somewhere else or do something else comes to an end. This is called being in the moment. When awareness is from moment to moment, the observer and the observed merge and there is no separation between them.
Meditate on this!
Comments»
I have to disagree Geoffrey…A child brings “happiness” like contemplating a sunset brings joy in the hearth…the whole miss understanding is the key…if we leave every day without fear and attachment, with awareness, we would find great enjoyment, maybe happiness and having a child is a great prove of courage, possibly the ultimate challenge of life…It’s “simpler” for a hermit sitting alone on a top of a hill in search of “enlightenment”, much more challenging is to come down in the crowd to find it…
Gaia
Geoff, you really make me think! so I write:
As a mother I asked myself the question: will a baby bring happiness?Happiness as the dualism night and day doesn’t exist without unhappiness, so anytime we find happiness we find unhappiness too at the same time, fine!…and as your friend said to you saying how many people have you helped and how much have you learned, so I believe that children are here in this world for us “adults” to learn, like a student with his teacher…the teacher will learn from the student, each student is unique, so It’s the child…
I think we should really go back to basic…the mother nature gives us her fruits, so mothers give birth to children…as a mother I learn how to be happy naturally in the moment, and my child is the great master, he is my light…when the child will leave home I will have, maybe, learned, the secret of life and I will go up on the top of a mountain to meditate in peace…we have giving a body that we’re trying to escape from to find refuge in the soul: if we except the body and stay grounded we won’t fight constantly to be out of it!
A smile from a child that is not even your own will expand the heart of a mother…she recognizes it, she knows and that is happiness in the moment!
PS: a correction on my previous message…heart without “h”.
Warm Regards,
Gaia
Hi Gaia,
A couple of things. True happiness is not caused – by anyone or anything. If it is caused, watch out! You will find eventually that it is not in the least bit real. I say this respectfully and based on thorough investigation.
As for hermits, one would suggest that all of them without exception have spent numerous lifetimes cultivating an understanding of happiness, contentment and enlightenment. As such, they have realized that the purpose of human life is to transcend the family! By the way, I have had four children (the oldest is 21) and this has served to support my suggestion above. However, I sense that what you are really trying to say in your discussion about the beauty of children is that they are pure and innocent and spontaneous – and nothing is quite as remarkable as that!
As for being a parent, surely the point of it (the experience of parenthood) is to cultivate a capacity to accept greater levels of responsibility – like a coach taking charge of the players in the team. Children are here to work that out just like every single one of us and they rely on a true demonstration of this from their parents. In fact, if parents can teach their children to be free of them, they are doing their job!
Yes, parents learn from their children and vice-versa. However, I think that it is dangerous to deify children at the expense of them learning how to earn the privileges that come to parents who are firm and stern, but also flexible and receptive. It seems most parents today have a hard time with the firm part of the equation!
Anyway, something to contemplate. And thanks for your participation. Feel free to respond again. These are very interesting topics.
Warm regards,
G
Hi Geof,
I totally agree with you…you have definitely a better way to speak the truth than I do.
Thanks for your beautiful response.
Warm regards to you,
Gaia
Dear Geoffrey,
I’m enjoying your blog immensley. It fills in time while I wait for my discharge. In a way I’ve been in a cave at the top of a mountain and so have much time to contemplate life, death and everything else in between. Jesus gave up his family attachments to the heartbreak of his mother. I think it is harder for a mother to be emotionally detached from her brood than a father does. Arn’t you blokes the lucky ones, it seems to me mothers have more challenging lives than men do! Thankfully we all have a go at trying on the suits of male/female, just wait for the time you wear a skirt, it’s no walk in the park being a female. I don’t have any children of my own but I know what being a woman is, you on the other hand can only experience parenthood from a fathers prespective, therefor you only have a one eyed view of the subject of attachment to your family. Mohammod is the only sage that had wife(s) and children ( as far as I understand ). Budha, Christ, Lau Tsu and any others you care to think about were all fatherless and unattached so it is easy for them to give out these great lectures on attachment. Gaia is a mother and I think speaks from an earth point of view, you on the other hand are a father and speak from a fire point of view, both are pertinent but limited. Unless a person is finely tuned to their past lives (lets face it not many are) only then can one be detached from family and the rest of humanity. Are yu in touch with your past Geoffrey ?
Hi Sam, You make some really good points! However, does attachment really take different forms? Or is attachment nonetheless a clinging (either to people or things)? If it is (a clinging) it would seem irrelevant whether or not it is from a male or female perspective. As for past lives, we are right now whatever we have been in the past! Our understanding now, in this moment, is founded upon wherever we have been and whatever we have done. Unless we understand that, unless we are conscious of that, it is difficult to move forward with grace.
Where we stand in relation to family right now obviously indicates much about our relationship to the past. But beyond this it is important to mention that it is possible to love family yet be detached. And it is certainly possible to play the part of detached parent and yet provide leadership, guidance, compassion and love. The problem is that some parents (male and female) think that the priority is to sustain friendship at the expense of leadership. As such, the spiritual nature of the dynamic is never truly revealed.
I look forward to the next exchange.