I’ve been sitting with a word that has always troubled me, a state of “being” that feels out of reach: happiness. There seems to be so little capacity out there to make space for those of us whose life experiences haven’t exactly been a gifted accumulation of things that make you say, yeah, this is good, I want to keep doing it. Perhaps the hardest truth to accept is that my upbringing never provided the raw materials or the architecture required to build or even envision a lasting happiness. The Problem with Toxic Positivity Interesting how frustrated or put out people can get when they run into what they view as unhappy “negative energy” that they cannot relate to, correct or ignore. The toxic positivity crowd seems fragile, openly displeased when things are not exactly their way. Looking closely, it feels like happiness isn’t an organic state of being. A construct built on top of an essential foundation of peace and security. It demands safety and structure to exist at all. Or perhaps the blessed state resilience of a careferee disposition. Expecting happiness to materialize out of nowhere after a foundation has been fractured by neglect and abuse is like demanding a roof when there are no walls. Unhappiness, by that same token, is just the weight of things that tear at that security. Why I Am Wired for Joy And yet, somehow, I am wired for joy. I delight easily. But joy and delight don’t care about a curated stack of ease or good fortunes. They live entirely in the immediate moment of being present and vulnerable. Happiness feels like it requires a whole history and a guaranteed future, but joy requires only the now, a sudden, fertile space which presents itself in the middle of whatever reality actually is. Happiness relies on a world that goes right, while joy only requires the willingness to stay open enough to notice a single, fleeting second of presence, belonging entirely to the moment, independent of a foundation beneath it which may be whole or broken. The Requirement of Happiness I recently learned that in the Mennonite tradition, there is a core insistence that suffering must never be done alone. It stopped me in my tracks. It made me wonder: what is the word for the exact opposite of that? Because the relationships that shaped me and then chosen out of habit—the ones that faithfully mirror my family of origin—operate on a completely different framework. In that world, the unwritten rule is that suffering doesn’t exist for the right kind of people. If it does, it must be masked, suppressed, blamed, and cast away– if you can’t manage it as prescribed. It’s an energy that says suffering is for losers, an energy that promises, “I’ll give you something to cry about.” The Autocracy of the Untroubled Growing up, happiness seemed a strict requirement. Yet, there was zero consideration for the lower levels of security—no foundational, protective caretaking that could flow into actual happiness. Instead, my sensitivities/struggles were used as evidence against me in a sort of autocratic system. Those who are not troubled or taxed with more than they can handle believe their peace is a birthright they earned and shall not be troubled by anyone lesser. By that same insulting logic, they identify most anyone hit by things consistently they cannot get back up from as deserving of the fall. Looking back, I wonder how my “care givers” believed it possible for me to be happy when I was chronically overwhelmed, without a steady support or floor beneath me. Sitting in Darkness: Ten Minutes a Day I listened to a podcast recently with Kate Bowler, a survivor of stage four cancer at a surprisingly young age. She talked about how many people really just do not want to know the truth of a difficult reality. In the season in which she thought she was months away from death, parting her from aloving family, husband and young son, a co-worker asked how she was doing, and she gave a brilliantly genuine answer: “I’m doing mostly okay, except for about ten minutes every day.” He didn’t say, “Well, at least it’s only ten minutes”. He didn’t offer a dismissive holow reassurance or pivot away from discomfort. Instead, he looked her in the eyes and said, “Will you tell me about those ten minutes?” It was a glaring, beautiful contrast to the standard script. No toxic positivity, no rushing to fix or minimize it, no turning away. Genuine inquiry – a quiet, compassionate presence willing to sit in the dark with someone else’s ten minutes. Kate wrote a piece in one of her books that captures that rare posture perfectly: Blessing for the Ones Who Stay Blessed are you who stay. Who sit beside pain that cannot be fixed. Who choose presence over platitudes, and silence over shallow comfort. Blessed are you who ask hard questions without rushing toward answers. Who bear witness to the kind of grief that rearranges the world. You who try. Try to imagine. Try to listen. Try to love in the absence of tidy outcomes. May your staying be its own kind of balm. Because it says: your pain matters. You matter. And may you feel, even now, that this, too, is holy. To stay. To try. To say yes to life in all of its complexity. And to love each other all the way through. The Courage to Stay It takes courage—and intentional humility—to stay present with someone whose reality is grim. Why is that so rare? Entitled people often behave as though the suffering are the fragile ones. But couldn’t fragility be more accurately defined as the inability to acknowledge, engage with, or endure difficulty? I am many things, but I am not fucking fragile. Those who judge me most harshly would crumble after a mile in my shoes. And then, with absolute conviction, they’d insist that if I were a better person, I’d have better shoes. What’s interesting is how comfortable—if not confident—these folks seem with speaking and doing harm while banking on their target being too ashamed to acknowledge the harm done. It’s a kind of meritocracy bullshit: if you’re suffering, you must have earned it; if you’re struggling, it must be a character flaw. That belief conveniently absolves them of any responsibility for the damage they cause.
