Happiness

I've been thinking a lot about about the answer to one of the questions I gave on the Radio Free School blogs interview a couple weeks back.  Here's the question and answer:

"Going against the middle class/mainstream entrenched believe that to have a successful life you have to get higher ed can you define your idea of what success means?"

To me it's quite simple: success to me means nothing more or less than being happy. I find it pretty hard to comprehend how EVERYONE can not see this! Nothing really matters if you're not happy, or working toward finding a place in your life that brings you happiness.
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Now, to me, happiness is a BIG word.  When I think of happiness, and of living a happy life, SO MANY things come to mind: sharing passions, following joy, becoming personally empowered through self and community reliance (versus reliance on only authority and experts), helping others become empowered through self and community reliance, being a part of a community...

Photo taken fall 2008

But of course, I made the mistake of using such a vague word, one that means many different things to many different people, and which doesn't encompass, for most people, all of the things that come to mind when I think of it!  When people read that original answer, from comments I got, I think many people interpreted it as being entirely....well, self-centered.  As missing all the bits about simply being a good person.  To me, all that was packed into the word "happy": all my dreams and goals and hopes.  As social creatures, humans generally love being  good people.  I feel great happiness when I know I've helped someone, or affected their life in a positive way.  But let me put things in a better way...

On Formspring (a site where you can ask and answer questions), where I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and get my own account, I was asked this question:

What's your goal in life? Aside from happiness, what important thing do you want to do before you die?

And I answered...

I want to be able to look back on my life, and know I did the best I could, by my ethics, beliefs, etc. Basically, my life goal is to have as positive an impact on the world, and on the people around me, as I can. That would make me very happy indeed. :-)

Does that explain things better?  I hope it does.

I also invite you to check out the other two interviews with grown unschoolers who skipped college that Radio Free School has done:

Cameron Lovejoy: "Is this what I want to be doing the day I die?"
Eli Gerzon: "I love my life."

Peace,
Idzie