What is happiness?
Hey you!
Today, when Lima, Bo and I were by the pool in the morning, there were a few other people but of course they were all adults because kids are in school. I couldn’t help but think what I would reply if one of them asked why my daughters aren’t at school.
My imaginary replies varied from ‘because neither of us wants to‘, to ‘none of your business‘, to ‘because they learn more efficiently living in the real world rather than an artificial learning environment‘. All of these answers would probably have lead to further questions and a deeper conversation about the schooling system, how humans learn and maybe even the meaning of life.
Because I then went on to rationalise our decision to unschool, probably because I still doubt myself sometimes and get triggered when people question us living this way (like my mother who is currently visiting us and dropping some passive disapproving hints about how we do things within our family).
I looked at Lima and Bo playing and noticed that in my head I was remarking on how well they’re getting on, how wonderfully they are interacting with each other, how Lima is teaching Bo things, how Bo is learning certain stuff at an early age, how this is better than them being locked up in a room with kids of the same age being forced to do things they’re not interested in, therefore not going to retain that information and it all being a waste of time etc.
In short, I was justifying our decision to unschool… to myself!
This means that I have more uncovered business within me that takes me away from the present moment and from enjoying the blissfulness of a free mind.
We were all born with a free, blank mind, absent from judgemental thoughts. These build bit by bit when spending time with older people who have cluttered minds, full of beliefs and fixed rules about themselves, others and life that they like to share with people, especially with children. And even if they don’t share them with words, if they are caught up in their minds, acting upon subconscious beliefs that lead their decision-making, kids will adopt those behaviour as well.
What does happiness mean?
For me it’s the absence of judgemental thoughts, of beliefs. When you look at your children throwing their clothes onto the ground and you think ‘they shouldn’t do that!‘, ‘They should be more thoughtful‘, ‘they’re spoiled little brats‘, ‘they will never learn how to be responsible humans‘ and so on, you are stepping out of the present moment and into a world of suffering that you are creating for yourself.
As Byron Katie would say, you are arguing with reality.
You cannot see the moment for what it is but your mind has altered reality into what your conditioned perception wants you to witness:
Things aren’t good the way they are;
They need to change for me to be ok;
I can only be happy if others comply to my wants and needs;
Life means suffering.
And so on. You were not born with those beliefs and you may not even be aware that they exist in your subconscious but when following the thread of your thoughts, this is exactly how you have been programmed to see the world.
This doesn’t mean they are true.
When I ask you: ‘What time is it?‘ and you answer ‘I believe it’s 4pm‘, it’s different to you looking at your watch and replying ‘It’s 4:05pm‘.
Beliefs aren’t true. They are lies.
They are not the truth because they are not true 100% of the time. When I say ‘I am intelligent/good/trustworthy/faithful/honest‘ etc it’s not true 100% of the time because I have done some stupid and bad things in my life, I have lied and broken someone’s trust in certain moments. No matter how rare and innocent these acts were, they happened and they will happen in the future, but the truth is that every single human being carries everything inside of themselves. All of them, the ones we perceive as positive and the ones we perceive as negative. But the negative ones we try to hide and push aside.
The moment you judge something as ‘good‘ you automatically create the opposite - ‘bad‘, because one cannot exist without the other. You create a mental hamster wheel for yourself or the person you are saying this to (most likely children because they usually don’t question what other people say)
Let me explain this a little further:
When a little child is playing around with a stick, he sees the stick for what it is, a stick. He might imagine it’s a weapon, then a wand, then a little creature. But these aren’t judgements, these are imaginary alterations that the boy knows are just phantasy.
Now imagine another person coming along and saying ‘put that down or you’ll hurt someone with it‘. The child learns that sticks are dangerous, that he cannot be trusted to not hurt others, that he’s a bad person (depending on the tone of voice the person uses to make his point). Even though the person didn’t explain the opposites of ‘dangerous, trustworthy and bad‘, the child now has some mental hamster wheels inside his head that dictate ‘I have to stay away from danger‘, ‘I must show that I am trustworthy‘, ‘I must be good‘. He’s trying to stay and reject part of himself and part of life which is impossible. At some point there will be dangers he’ll have to take. There will be moments when people will doubt his trustworthiness and there won’t be anything he can do about what others think of him but he’ll still feel bad because of those beliefs. He’ll be caught in those hamster wheels, trying to get away from ‘being bad‘ and trying to always ‘be good‘ which is impossible. Sometimes it’s ok and necessary to do something that others will see as ‘bad‘. That’s subjective anyway but due to his fixed beliefs telling him he must be good, it will hit him very hard when someone tells him he’s done something bad - an inevitable moment.
If the person hadn’t said anything to the boy with the stick, and he had hurt a girl with it, and the other person hadn’t reacted in any way (except maybe tending to the girl), the boy would have learned that he can hurt someone with a stick and that’s it. No bad beliefs about himself or other hamster wheels would had been created and he would have continued to be present, just with a little bit more knowledge about how to handle sticks. Our reaction to a child’s action can have a massive and lasting effect!
Every time you comment positively or negatively about something you did, someone else did - kid or adult - a child listening or watching will create a mental hamster wheel that will impact his ability to be in the present moment in a negative way and the choices he will make from now on.
Yes, even if you say something positive (‘You’re such a good girl‘):
She’ll learn that when she doesn’t do what just made you say ‘good girl‘, she’ll be a ’bad girl’
Yes, even if you make a comment about someone else, not the child:
Together you see an overweight woman and you say ‘She’s disgusting‘.
She’ll learn that if she ever gained weight, she’ll be disgusting. And she’ll probably perceive chubby people as such, judging them or even making comments about them in here mind or to others.
Together you see a young, blond, slim, pretty woman and you say ‘I wish I looked like her‘:
She’ll learn that THAT’S the beauty standard to achieve and to be liked by others.
Yes, also when you make a comment about yourself:
You dropped a plate and it broke and you said ‘Oh, I’m such a dumbass‘ out loud.
She’ll learn that stupid people make mistakes and should be punished. You can imagine what this will do to her making mistakes in the future.
To come back to the pool moment this morning:
I asked myself ‘What do I want for Lima and Bo?‘ and I answered myself ‘I want them to be happy‘. This, as we all know doesn’t come from having a degree, having tons of money, being able to buy whatever you want, being married to a handsome prince or anything else that is outside of ourselves.
Ultimately happiness is accepting reality which means not to have the thoughts appear that judge situations and people as positive or negative but to take them as they are.
At an ordinary school it’s very hard to keep my daughters from creating thousands of hamster wheels that limit them in many ways, taking away their freedom and happiness. Therefore, I think we’re making a great choice by not sending them there, not judging them or others too often and too harshly (I’m working on my mental hamster wheels on a daily basis but they do create conflict in our lives sometimes, me ending up making a judgmental comment here and there).
What my daughters learn throughout the day, I don’t know and I’m not keeping track of their achievements to be honest. They’ll learn different things to children who attend schools but I know they’ll learn everything they need for their own life journey. At some point, society came up with these goals, rules and ideas about what people should do and achieve to be happy but if we look closely, most of them are lies.
True happiness comes from within and we’re born with it so all adults need to do is step aside, shut the f*ck up and let them continue being happy ;-)
What do YOU think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Sylvia x
Photo by Szilvia Basso on Unsplash
