I’ve never struggled with a question more. Am I happy now, as opposed to before? And if before I was happy by some measure, why would it have changed? How can I think of happiness now, when everything is terrible? Even if I know that this moment doesn’t differ from any other moment in history. That is to say that these new days are full of old sorrows, and long after I am dead and gone, the same will be true. But just because all this has happened to generations before and will beyond us, it doesn’t feel any less painful in its proximity.
It’s a simple question, something you’d ask on a first date perhaps. Yet I don’t think I’ve asked that question of myself before. I’d asked what I need to do in the moment, to feel better, to give back, to be productive, but never what would make me happy in the grand arc. I argue that I must have been looking for it all this time, yet when I approach the question head on, when I vow to improve at life, health, work and in turn happiness – it always feels like a brand-new prospect – a thing I hadn’t considered before.
