And THEN I’ll be Happy
“…And then I’ll be happy, King Daddy!”
This is a line from one of my favorite stories growing up. It was on a little yellow cassette tape that I listened to all the time. It was the soundtrack to my road trips and lazy days lying in the living room. It’s the story of happiness for one little princess (adapted from memory)…
It’s almost her birthday, and the little princess is sad because she isn’t sure what she wants for her birthday. The king wants more than anything to help her be happy. He asks her what she needs to be happy. After thinking about it for a while, the little princess decides it must be her clothes that are making her unhappy. She needs new pretty dresses. She says, “Get me the most beautiful dresses you can find and then I’ll be happy King Daddy!”
With the help of the court wizard, the king gives the princess a dress that can turn into any dress that she can imagine. All she needs to do is speak the new design out loud and the dress would transform.
The little princess is happy!... for a while… but eventually the dress stops bringing her joy. She has tried every possible dress combination and now the excitement has dwindled away. As her crying fills the castle halls, King Daddy returns to find out what is wrong.
“I’m just not happy.”
“Please don’t cry Little Princess. What can I do to make you happy again?”
“I know! I need new toys. These toys are old and boring. Get me new toys and then I’ll be happy King Daddy!”
With the help of the wizard, the king creates a magical toy box where any toy the princess can think of will appear within the box.
For a while, the little princess is thrilled with the toy box. After a few weeks, however, the princess is crying again. The castle is filled to the brim with toys. The satisfaction of achieving everything she asked for does not last.
Eventually, the little princess realizes that having all of these things mean nothing if she has no one to share them with.
In the end, she decides that for her birthday, she will invite all the children from the kingdom to the castle, and they can each pick a toy to take home. All in all, she ends up with less stuff, more friends, and lasting happiness.
How often do we think that once we get the thing or achieve the momentous goal then we’ll be happy?
Did you know that marathoners often get post-race depression? The sudden drop of adrenaline, the absence of the focused goal, and the end of an intense training period can leave many of them languishing. This post race feeling is why my little sister prefers training for marathons more than actually running marathons.
I once sat in the home of a former Miss America and she described a similar scenario. She told us of many former Miss Americas who were simply languishing after holding the title because they had accomplished everything they hoped for… but what to do after that?
Dr. Arthur Brooks, happiness expert and Harvard Professor, explains this phenomenon quite well. Brooks shows that the satisfaction of a goal comes in the process of striving for it – not arriving at it. He also says that happiness is a simple equation of haves divided by wants. Most of us add to our haves thinking it will make us happy. But a much more efficient way of getting more happiness is to lower your wants. And, like the little princess in my story, one of the best ways to lower your wants in a sustainably joyous way is to share your haves in the service of others.
So, it turns out, this little story that I grew up listening and singing along to was teaching me some of the science of happiness. Whenever we seem to be holding back finding joy in the moment or assuming that achieving a goal will make everything feel better, my family has adopted the warning phrase “and then I’ll be happy King Daddy!” The joy isn’t at the end. It’s in the growth of the journey.
Thanks for reading with me today. I hope you find joy in your journey today.
References:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/03/why-we-are-never-satisfied-happiness/621304/
