Accidentally Joyful and What Really Matters

Salma Ahmed 

Managing English Editor

One of the schools I came across during my three years of studying philosophy is stoicism, which is about reaching a state where nothing can disturb your peace of mind. 

This branches from the belief that no individual can have control over events, but how they approach these events. Of course, this is a very vague and simplified take on a school that people spend years studying. 

Stoicism negates the expression of any extreme emotions, positive or negative, irrespective of the situation or circumstances. 

Your wildest dream becomes a reality, and yet you don’t feel or express extreme happiness. A close relative passes away, but you don’t feel or express extreme sorrowfulness. 

Stoicism rewards one with a life where sadness is no longer an option but also where happiness is never felt.

“I don’t think happiness is the end goal, it isn’t what I aspire to,” a former friend once said. 

We had this intense conversation over the purpose of life with me emphasizing that it is happiness and contentment. He argued that it is anything but. 

He had me questioning my once unshakable core beliefs. I had just finally found the meaning of life through my readings in philosophy. Be ethical, do good, commit moral acts then die. Seems pretty simple, and it is, especially since there are some who correlate moral goodness to a state of happiness. 

The promise of happiness after morality seems ideal, especially that morality is not as common as I would like it to be. But then comes an ethical dilemma: If ethical acts become means to an end, which is happiness, then they are no longer ethical.

Whether it be your end goal or not, happiness is something we all long for but fail to notice that we already have. 

Happiness is walking around and knowing you don’t have a target on your head. Happiness is knowing you have the freedom of wearing whatever you please and going wherever you want. Happiness is hidden in the everyday life, in the people you greet and in the ones you don’t. Happiness is observing an amicable interaction between two strangers or two lovers. 

As a highschool senior I was required to finish over 50 hours of community service. I decided to volunteer as a girl scout leader at my school. I was assigned to a class of 12 first-graders, which seems very illogical now that I think of it. I was 17 and had never babysat other than my younger sister and hadn’t been given any guidance on how to deal with this bunch. 

It was mid-March and I had run out of activities to do with the bunch for the duration of our hour-long weekly meeting. I decided to have them create Mother’s Day cards as a way to pass the time and have them stop nagging me for food which I didn’t have. By the time of their dismissal they each had a card to show off or throw away, I couldn’t care less. 

Then came Salma’s mom to pick her up. Salma was one of my all time favorite girl scouts; I like to think it isn’t because we share the same first name. The second her mom passed by the door, she ran into her arms and in no time was showing her the card she made her. The mom teared up and gave her daughter a minute-long hug. 

She admired the card then hugged her once again. The interaction had me warm on the inside. The love shared between the mother and her daughter in this simple act was beyond anything I had ever witnessed. And to think that my stupid pastime activity resulted in this had me on cloud nine for at least a few days. 

It made me realise how selfless happiness really is. Happiness is about anyone but your own self. The most genuine happiness can be found in a cat breastfeeding its kittens and keeping them warm during the harsh winter days. 

It can be found on your best friend finally stumbling along a significant other who he makes happy and treats right. Or in your sibling finally achieving a lifelong dream. And in a stranger helping out an elderly lady carry her groceries. 

Happiness is in the people we walk toward the second we need a home or to feel safe. Happiness is in the ones who give us shelter and endless laughs. Happiness isn’t something in ourselves like they have led us to believe but in those around us who we love endlessly no matter where life takes us.

We are too quick to insert ourselves in everything, our built-in narcissism leaves little room for us to look outside ourselves. But this is when we finally get that sense of happiness we so desperately crave, when we put our narcissism and ego on hold to look at what truly matters.