Our culture is obsessed with happiness. It has been for a long time, longer than anyone can remember. In the twentieth century, that obsession went hand in hand with the marketing of material goods: buy a nice house, a fancy car, brand-name clothing, etc. Even though the twenty-first century is much more minimalistic, we still see the obsession with happiness in the “experiences” that people invest in, whether it’s quitting your job to backpack around the world or going to yoga every morning or following the FIRE model (financially independent, retire early).
Even though a lot of good has come from the transition from being object-driven to experience-driven, there’s an underlying issue with the message that you should always be happy and always be pursuing your dreams. If you’re not constantly happy, if you sometimes dislike your job, if you feel bored or sad, are you doing life wrong? Is it your fault that things aren't the best they could be?
Then, the pandemic hit. Suddenly, we can’t partake in the experiences that we’ve come to see as the mark of a good life: no travel, no restaurants, no fun events with friends. We can’t go to the grocery store or the craft store whenever we feel like it, which means that Instagram-worthy dinners and projects are much harder to attain. On a deeper level, there’s a grief that is lying over all of us. Even if we don’t feel it every moment, it’s there: grief for the loss of life and the constant anxiety of wondering when things will, if ever, return to normal. True happiness seems far away now.
It is okay to grieve. Even if you are relatively lucky in this situation, if your family and job are safe, it’s still okay to miss things that made you happy. You can feel empathy and gratitude and loss at the same time. It's okay to feel sad about missing graduation, or prom, or a wedding. It’s okay that you haven’t written a novel yet, or learned to play the guitar, or found ultimate enlightenment. Sometimes, all you can do is keep breathing, keep taking each day one step at a time.
This brings me to flowers. Bulb flowers aren’t a big thing in Colorado, where I grew up, but I’ve been seeing them everywhere here in Madison. Yesterday when I was on a walk around my neighborhood (practicing good social distancing, of course) I passed a house where their entire front and backyard was entirely covered in beautiful purple flowers. In the backyard was a woman working on the porch.
“I love your flowers!” I called out.
“I didn’t plant them,” she replied. “They just grew!”
This statement made me smile. Despite everything that’s going on, the flowers are still blooming, and they’re doing it without our help. Beauty is occurring spontaneously. That doesn't make everything alright. It doesn't mean that things are going to be back to normal. But in that moment, I was given a little bit of hope amidst the grief, and I felt pretty good.
Things are dark right now. It’s hard to know what the future will bring, and it’s hard to be happy all of the time, or even some of the time. But there are still things out there that are pretty good, and sometimes pretty good is good enough.
Here are a few flowers to finish things up; I hope they bring some goodness to your day.