Happiness can be illusive. It's often easier, these days, to find and focus on the negatives. We grow up with lofty aspirations and the belief that we will be able to achieve the highest highs and if we fail we're brought crashing back down to earth with an overwhelming feeling of failure. The problem is not the aspirations themselves but how we view them and our lives.
It all begins in how we view and measure success. We are informed early on in life, through our teachers and parents, how to measure our achievements. Do they encourage and allow us to explore what makes us happy or only the things in which we are naturally gifted? Do they show pride in our accomplishments or our endeavours? Do they compare us to themselves or others? With a lifetime spent absorbing these lessons, it's no surprise that we can get to adulthood and feel very lost.
The real world is economically driven, so we can be forgiven for measuring success by how much we earn. We all have to pay the bills and put food on the table. But does money really make people happy? The "Easterlin Paradox" shows that more income does not bring more happiness. He explains that as incomes rise, so do aspirations. This is why we can feel so discontent, even in our success. And when incomes fall, the aspirations don't which can bring further discontent.
We are all aware of the war waged against unrealistic body types and body image as portrayed by the media. It's hard to look at ourselves and not see (what we consider) physical flaws and imperfections and focus on the bad rather than taking in the whole picture. Does this mean that this is how we view everybody else? Or do we criticise others so as to make us feel better about ourselves?
Workplaces are competitive, school is competitive, it's hard to escape. It can bring out the best in us and also the worst. It forces us to compare ourselves to others constantly and if we find ourselves wanting, that inevitably can lead to depression and a feeling of worthlessness. Stemming from our animal instincts, "survival of the fittest", it's hard to counteract, but is this something we need to eradicate from society altogether? Or do we need to find new strategies for dealing with competition?
In this day and age we cannot escape other peoples' happiness. Social media has given us a window into our friends' and acquaintances' lives, for good and bad. It's difficult to remember that we all want to put our best foot forward, we all want people to think we are happy, successful and content. Whole generations are living, through Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, the life they aspire to have, the life they want other people to believe they have, but the cost is high, not only for themselves but the people following them. It develops negative personality traits such as jealousy, envy and depression in the viewer and feelings of failure in the poster for essentially lying.
Recently Essena O'Neil owned up to the disparity between her true self and the life she portrayed on Instagram. She didn't feel she could continue to have a successful fake existence at the expense of her real life. But aren't we all guilty of living like this in one way or another? We only choose to share certain parts of our lives with the wider world, or when asked "How are you?" most people will say "Fine/OK/Good" even if this isn't the case. When we fill in applications, or when we attend interviews, we shine a light on our positive attributes and hide the worst and often unbelievably come across as superhuman, only owning up to the mildest of weaknesses.
The problem is, in all of the above, I think, subconsciously we base our goals and dreams on the assumption that the world is fair and all people can achieve all things. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Not all of us can be "Number One", we can't all be in the 1%. Only some of us will ever achieve the lofty heights of peer reviewed greatness. The is the same across the board.
However, we can all find happiness.
How does all of this relate to me and my journey?
The abridged edition! From an early age I always aspired to be a "Pop Star". A life of singing and songwriting, globetrotting, fame and fortune. I set my aspirations high from the get-go. My parents were wonderful and funded all the necessary extra-curricular lessons: singing, dancing and acting lessons. I went on to higher education at LIPA, The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, the Paul McCartney fame school as it is sometimes known. And from there a Masters in Songwriting.
Nothing really prepared me for the battle that would follow leaving higher education. I had lived with the overwhelming inevitability that "of course I would succeed". I had natural ability, all the skills, I won competitions, I graduated with a First, people said how talented I was and how much I deserved to succeed because I worked so hard.
I left education with debt and, as a lot of musicians, got a shop job and started teaching. My solo career was a side-project and my "happy place" as it was through school. I still had my dream and determination. Over the next few years I began performing for work in bars and restaurants and the shop job was a thing of the past, I was making a living from music. I had minor successes with musical projects (Rocky and Balls) and kept plowing ahead.
I self-funded an album which took 18months and most of my money. Whilst looking for people to remix a single I met a producer with whom I began to work and through his contacts, he and his production partner and myself all got publishing contracts and they a recording contract. Things seemed to be on the up for us all. This was almost 20 years of hard graft on my part, coming to fruition. All that determination wasn't for nothing. I was good enough and I succeeded.
Now, again, I wasn't prepared for was what happened next. Nothing was as I thought it would be. I had been signed under a unique circumstance, that I had work that was going to be released, rather than something released already and two and a half years in, it still hasn't been released. People who I believed previously were there to help me and push me onward to greater things, told me that they had nothing to sell me on, even though I had hundreds of songs in my back catalogue and unreleased works on the side-lines. The industry failed to live up to my expectations. I was a tiny fish in a big pond and of little consequence. It seems that it was always going to be the case. For two decades I had built up in my mind what the dream of being signed would be like in reality. As it turns out, it was just the beginning of another difficult, more competitive road.
I spiraled down into depression and the lustre of songwriting waned from the brightest, most hopeful expression of myself into something that only reminded me of my current failings. The excitement of achieving my goal turned, over a year, into depression, bitterness and resentment.
At some point down this road I reached a turning point in myself. I somehow found a way to forget about what I was not able to achieve and instead focus on how to bring the happiness back to my life. I'm lucky to have a partner who loves me and accepts me flaws and all. He supported me through the darkest time in my life and I'm pretty sure that wasn't an easy journey for him. I've started to make music for myself again, music that makes me happy to sing and write, seek out musical relationships that brought me joy and projects that I believe in. I had stopped making music because I loved it and only because I felt I had to, and I stopped writing to my strengths and started writing what I thought people wanted me to write. Now I write was comes naturally and have started seeking and making opportunities again.
Now I'm in a place where I'm looking for happiness in unexpected places, I'm looking to explore hobbies I had previously side-lined because of my music and I'm thinking about starting a family in the not-too-distant future. I know now that my life doesn't begin and end with music, it's so much more. And I won't peg all my happiness on the success of something I can't control, but instead focus on the journey and the little achievements I make every day.
In conclusion, when we are struggling with our own development and growth, it's hard to be objective and remind ourselves of all the things we have accomplished, especially when the world reminds us that other people are achieving more. In this integrated, immediate world, instead of reaching for the highest heights, perhaps we should set ourselves smaller achievable goals that in succession, lead us down the path we wish to go with reaffirmation and positivity. Perhaps we should be more realistic in our expectations in the short-term to realise our true potential over time.
Yes. We can be happy. But we have to commit to change. We have to break out of cycles of negativity and construct a life of affirmation conducive to success.
I will leave you with a great Ted Talk from Shawn Achor, a video I have watched multiple times, the author of The Happiness Advantage, where he says,
"We're finding it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time."
