I have put a lot of thought into the concept of happiness. I have always struggled with a certain darkness and spent most of my late teens and 20’s battling debilitating depression. It is something I continue to manage.

Ironically, one of the things that came out of my accident and subsequent experiences is that, for the first time in my adult life, I actually liked myself. This is the result of a number of things. Perhaps it is partly age, experience (experience = making lots of mistakes) and may be evolving out of all my growing pains/angst; part of it is that, for the first time in my life, I had to tolerate a really shitty situation. In the past, if I hadn’t been happy with things (e.g. an academic path, a job, a relationship) I could just move on to something else. In this situation, I had nowhere to run to and was forced to endure and get through a really tough thing. Before my accident, I would poo-poo my various accomplishments, thinking, well, if I can do it, it couldn’t have been that hard. My accident was something I knew was, objectively, really hard and I was/am proud of the way I conducted myself through it. As a result, for the first time in my life, I could acknowledge the positive qualities I now knew I had always possessed.

When people would hear about my accident, I would often hear sentiments along the lines of “You survived for a reason.” NO. I survived because of a confluence of certain factors and events. I’m sure people say stuff like this to impose meaning on a tragic incident/situation, probably more for their benefit than mine. I have always been a humanist/atheist, from age 5 or 6 or so. This faith in my own strength and abilities, rather than any reliance on an external source, has had a strong influence on the way I’ve led/lead my life.

I read Frankl’s short but powerful text Man’s Search for Meaning a year or two after my accident. Frankl articulated what I had always struggled with, and one of the root causes of my previous depression. This Atlantic article does a good job of summarizing themes that have dominated my life. I know I am no hedonist, and that simply experiencing pleasure, does not make me happy.

One question I still struggle with is whether happiness is a choice or not. Sometimes biological factors seem to be very strong; yet, why is it that quite a lot of people can find happiness amidst pretty poor circumstances and others, manage to grab failure from the jaws of relatively good circumstances? A topic worthy of an entire blog of its own.

In the meantime, I seek to live my life to the fullest, meaning with stoke, determination, integrity, and doing my little bit to help other people realize their potential.