Article January 11, 1988 Issue

Happiness where you are

Is being happy just a once-in-a-while occurrence — something we have little control over? Do circumstances really dictate happiness?

Mary Lee S. O'Neal

Are you happy? If you can answer "yes," congratulations! The plethora of articles in magazines and the many books on this subject indicate that this is a major concern. People everywhere seem to be searching for happiness. And apparently it is eluding most of them.

Why aren't people happy? What are we looking for? We hear, "I'll be happy when we have children ... when the children are out of the house ... when we have a house ... when I get into school ... when I'm out of school ... when I find work ... when I don't have to work." The list is endless and varied. For some, happiness was in the past. For others, it's in the future. But there is one common factor. It never seems to be now!

At one time or another we probably all have held this view of happiness as not existing in the present. I know I have. Once I was really convinced that a situation just had to change before I could be happy. It was in the mid-sixties, and I was living in the Philippines with a number of other wives of U.S. Air Force personnel. Our husbands were in Vietnam. Fear was rampant; friends were becoming widows. Depression, loneliness, and boredom were causing wives to turn to alcohol and drugs. Fifty percent of them, I was told, were on tranquilizers. There were infidelities, a few suicide attempts. Not a happy time!

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