Changing my outlook in life including the 'pursuit of happiness'

There's only so much you can learn in one place

The more that I wait, the more time that I waste

I haven't got much time to waste

It's time to make my way

I'm not afraid of what I'll face

But I'm afraid to stay

I'm going down my road and I can make it alone

I'll work and I'll fight till I find a place of my own

Jump

Madonna

The first part of this song has never been truer than at this point in time for me. I have been going through a period of self-evaluation and critique. This year at uni has been very different to my last. I feel like I am growing as person. I am learning so much about people and also about myself. I guess when I started thinking of my life I felt unhappy for a multitude of reasons. I felt upset, lonely but I’d never say I was depressed. I had one thing, I had my degree. No matter what I am going through in my personal life, I can step into hospital, PBL or lectures and leave my problems at the door. This was my saviour. It gave me hope. I could throw myself into the adrenaline rush and genuine satisfaction and love that I have for medicine. I see something every day that keeps me going and gives me strength.

I felt very miserable at times. I felt hopeless and kept thinking that my life was ****. I kept thinking that surely there was more to life than this. I know this may sound like classic depression symptoms, but as a medical student I know what people who were depressed felt like. I didn't feel like that. I didn't feel suicidal or so low I feel like giving up. Even if I am upset, I still get myself up in the morning and can’t wait to get outside and away from my whirring thoughts and just start a new day. Maybe this is escapism, but nonetheless I never ever felt my life had no meaning.

It’s my personal and social life that makes me unhappy. I realised that it’s too late to actually change things but I can change my outlook in life. That is something a new friend of mine taught me. He said that we judge our lives and happiness by comparing it to others and what we see around us. That’s why so many people are unhappy. I knew it to be true in a superficial sense but never really thought about it deeply. Usually when something big and life changing happens, you stop and think and assess your life. Who am I? What do I want? What makes me happy? Is this it? I thought about the implications of what my friend said. I realised that if I assessed my life as its own entity, instead of comparing it to others and what ’everyone else’ is doing, I can be so much happier. I stopped and thought for a second. Wait, I have good health, a comfortable life materially, a strong supportive family network, a few God sent friends and an amazing potential career which can literally take me as far as I want it to. I also try to be a good person, have an open mind and do the right thing. No matter what life throws at me I try and maintain some integrity and dignity.

I also thought about happiness. As an entity and whether I was happy. When we go about our busy lives we hardly stop and think about whether we are happy with our life and the way things are going. It’s only when something happens that you stop and think about it. I think like everyone I never really appreciate what I have and instead see what other people’s lives are like and therefore feel dissatisfaction in mine. This is a weakness that my parents have consistently reminded me and my brother not to succumb to. I also remember reading one day in an article online

“It may seem a rather depressing, fatalistic view, but … I don’t believe any of us has the ‘right’ to happiness.”

Bel Mooney, journalist and broadcaster

This I believe is a really strong bold statement that is quite controversial and as Bel herself reflects is quite depressing. We all do believe that we are entitled to happiness and that it is a right. The Declaration of Independence in the USA takes this concept even further and says that

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

I have always never questioned this before. I have always thought we all deserve to be happy. It was always something people said. Right up until a few weeks ago I believed that we all were entitled to this. But why do we deserve to be happy? In essence if we think about it as a concept, we don’t deserve anything. We have to find it and earn it through our own determination and hard work. In the same way we do with everything else in life that we want. I never thought I deserved to be a doctor. I worked hard and did my best and earned my place at medical school. I believe the same is true with other concepts such as love and happiness. We aren't entitled to it. We shouldn't expect things to fall into our hands. If we want it hard enough we have to earn it. I think once we stop thinking that we deserve happiness it takes the pressure off trying to attain it. There isn't this dark cloud hanging over us. There isn't this expectation that we have to try to realise. When that cloud is lifted we can be more appreciative of life and what we have. We are all living in a dog eat dog world, where survival of the fittest is never more important. But instead of having bigger muscles and cut throat survival instincts, the new differential is money. We don’t deserve anything, we have to work our ***** to survive, in the literal and metaphoric sense of the word.