It is surprising how many variants happiness has.
For example, there is the Polycrates’ complex, which consists of the psychic illness that causes unhappiness or failure in a person precisely at the moment when he has achieved or is about to achieve her/his maximum aspirations. It is also called unhappy happiness because it is based on the fear of losing the desired happiness just at the moment we think we achieve it. There are people who are the result of their success, or, reached their greatest desire, are shown in deep apathy and melancholy. And that feeling causes some to boycott themselves just before tasting that deserved success for which they have fought so hard.
And then there is another variant of happiness that catches my attention and is very well collected in this quote by the Baron de Montesquieu:
«It would have to convince people that ignore happiness, even when they possess.»
And it is what I would call as ignored happiness. And it would consist in realizing all the undesirable events that have not happened to us and feeling grateful for it.
People already know that to be happy is very good to be grateful for all the good things that we have or happen to us, and so, it is recommended to people who want to be happier than before going to bed, they think about three good things that happened to them during the day and feel grateful for them in order to increase their satisfaction for life and therefore their sense of happiness.
In the case of ignored happiness, the task would be rather to make a list of all the possible misfortunes that have not occurred to us during that day, give thanks for it and be aware of the luck we have had. The list would be endless: I feel grateful because I have not been run over, I have not lost my job, I have not fought with anyone, my children have not failed their exam, I have not been injured running, I have not been diagnosed with any sinister pathology, I have not been fallen a tree on top … and so on to infinity. It would be very laborious, but precisely, that great extension would give us the measure of how happy we should feel because none of those unfortunate events have occurred in our day.
You maybe will tell me that to make that list is to waste your time … do not believe it, if we were truly aware of all the possible misfortunes that we have got rid of during the day, we would be more than happy, we would feel truly happy.
Unlike the Polycrates’ complex where we feel unhappy just when we reach the desired happiness, in ignored happiness the point is to realize the happiness that we do not enjoy and we could enjoy if we were aware of the possible and varied misfortunes that could have occurred to us and we have avoided without knowing it.
Such is the paradox, that only when one of those misfortunes happens to us, we lament thinking about how happy we were before it happened and, however, we had not been able to realize it.
Among the complex unhappy happiness of Polycrates, or the ignored happiness, we will agree that it is more appropriate and positive to be in the second case. Although to you it seems something sinister the approach to ignored happiness, if you think about it, you will realize that it is very optimistic, to value everything we have been spared is, from my point of view, a good way to end the day grateful.
I invite you to try it and tell me.
«Many seek happiness as others seek their cap, are wearing and do not realize.» Nikolaus Lenau
