At the end of every good fairy tale and romance story there is either the explicit line or the implication of…’and they lived happily ever after’. I don’t know why but I have spent some time today musing on that. What does happily ever after actually mean?
In the fairy tale or the romance story, it’s usually the happy couple that live happily ever after. And when you think about it, we all prefer the stories where there is a happy ending. I know I do. I remember going to the cinema and watching a film (I can’t remember its name now) and because the main character died at the end, I felt cheated. I hadn’t invested time and money, I thought, to be saddened! I came to be uplifted! Ambiguous endings also bring a level of frustration – we don’t want to guess whether it all ended up happily, we want to know. It’s something of a dichotomy – we are fixated on the negative in our news and media, but in our entertainment we yearn for the happy ever after. We seem to need to know that everything will turn out well.
I’ve meditated today on the question – what is happy ever after? Happiness is our own responsibility. It is a choice we can make, even in the darkest of times, to be happy. That regardless of what is happening, we can choose to be happy. I know that’s difficult, trust me I really do, but it is something we can do. But the happy ever after we seem to crave often is a happy ever after with someone else – as though the individual needs the other person for their happiness. That the responsibility for happiness rests with someone else, someone external when it’s really all an internal job and is no one else’s responsibility but our own.
There is also the point that we rarely sit and examine what truly makes us happy. We often get caught up in the societal expectations of what we should think make us happy. What society tells us is our happy ever after – the life partner, the children, the lovely home, the job. Look at the adverts on television and we can see what the subliminal message is about what should make us happy. And we absorb that message at a subconscious level, rarely asking ourselves what is it that makes me happy? Because it truly will be individual to you. I know when I went through this process for myself I found it incredibly difficult, surprisingly so. What surprised me was that I didn’t know the answer immediately, I had to do ask myself lots of questions. Even starting with – when do I feel happy? I went through that process about six or seven years ago now, and I can guarantee that my views will have changed in that time because I have changed in that time period.
I used to watch the Sex and the City TV show and have seen both films though I haven’t seen And Just Like That. What’s interesting, though, is that SATC ended with Carrie and Mr Big realising they were ‘the one’ for each other. Yet there are howls of disappointment because at the end of AJLT, apparently Carrie comes to the conclusion that she will end up not alone but on her own. We know that Carrie didn’t get her happy ever after easily after the end of the TV shows and the beginning of AJLT took it away completely. Because that happy ever after ended up focused on Mr Big rather than Carrie focusing on what makes her happy before anything else.
You can be lonely in a relationship, being lonely doesn’t mean being alone. You can be lonely in a crowd. But, if you choose happiness in yourself then you can reduce this loneliness. And if you know what makes you happy, you can grow your tribe. If there has to be an external part to happy ever after, for me it’s about surrounding yourself with your tribe. Happy ever after is about living the life you have designed, a life that is what you want in that stage of your life. Your happy ever after can also change as you move through life. It doesn’t have to remain the same for the rest of your life – ever after is surely an unreasonable ask. Because we change, our lives change, lots of things change. I know what made me happy in my 20’s is so very different to what makes me happy in my 50’s. If I’d found my happy ever after then, what would that mean?
I think the ever after part can mean we end up living unconsciously. Going through the motions, not seeing behind the veil, not decoding the matrix. It’s telling yourself that of course you’re happy ever after, that’s what you signed up for. And for some people, it really is their happy ever after. But for some, it’s square peg and round hole time again. It’s just that because things started as the ‘happy ever after’ we might spend more time trying to force that square peg into the round hole than we would otherwise.
Happy is your choice. Ever after is never guaranteed. How can Cinderella be sure that Prince Charming is the man she wants to be with forever? Are they going to remain static as people? That doesn’t happen. Will they change together or will their change take them apart? What is true is that they will change as people, as life experiences impact them and as they mature.
I’m really not sure what has prompted me to write this but it feels like it needs to be said. Perhaps it’s a reflection on my own life, I know I’ve been doing some deep soul thinking about that. It would just be very interesting to hear the perspective of other people on this topic, so please do feel free to post a comment of your thoughts.
Louisa Simpson 