Alternate Realities and the Art of Happiness

Not just because of recent island-based, sci-fi, TV dramas, I’ve been thinking a lot of alternate realities. How the decisions we make shoot us down one path or another. Like if you had only gotten into that creative writing seminar, you’d have a plum reporting job, or if you’d gone on that camping trip to the Rockies, you’d have a different life partner. Would your life be better? Would you be any happier in those realities?

Or would whatever it is that makes you “you,” push you to pretty much where you are now with only slight differences? This is the “course correction” hypothesis. Sure, maybe you’d be with a different mate, but he’d share pretty much the same characteristics as your current spouse, given those are the qualities you, in all your “you-ness,” are drawn to. Is your fate pretty much sealed by a combination of your personal proclivities and upbringing?

Could it be that some number-crunching social scientist, given enough data on the circumstances of our birth and our abilities, could predict with reasonable accuracy where we’d end up. Born with an aptitude for science, introverted relational style and of upper-income parents with liberal politics and a connection to a religious community, will end up…… (peep peep, chug chug, chrunch chrunch ….) in a stable relationship working as a chemical engineer and vacationing in the Berkshires. Maybe you’d deviate a bit from this ending, but not much. Or would you?

Maybe there is truly enough randomness over a lifetime to put you farther off that course. Could be that the randomness in our lives accumulates to offer vastly different alternate futures. I’m sure Malcolm Gladwell could write a convincing essay on either option.

None of this is anything new. The debate between chance and choice has been the stuff of religious and philosophical musings (and late night pot-induced dorm room rap sessions) and the meat of great novels for centuries. What I’ve become obsessed with is wondering is if I’d be happier in any of these alternative realities.

My husband likes to remind me that I suffer from the “grass is always greener” syndrome, and this is unequivocally true. Objectively, I’m a pretty lucky gal. I have a reasonably fulfilling, low-stress and high-paid job, a loving husband, healthy baby and all around supportive friends and family. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking I could have it better, if only…

You see, every once in a while I run into those people. You know, the kind that ooze self contentment and emanate joy. They love their lives and feel lucky every day. They smile at strangers with actual sincerity, and brush off frustrations easily. Is that because the fates, or the consequences of their birth, or whatever drives their life’s trajectory put them in the most optimal outcome for them? Might they be less happy in another job, city, family? Or are they the types who no matter where they land would have a sunny disposition?

I need to know this because, like I said, I’m lucky. But I don’t ooze joy. And I want to. I want to be one of those people who feel happy to be exactly where they are. These people fascinate and frustrate me. Are they this way because of their perspective or their position. And which is easier to control? A new perspective or a new position? I guess that depends on who and where you are.