The article in the Catholic Times by a professor in a college Social Welfare Department gives the readers some advice for a happy family. The article begins with the titled words: I must remember I may be wrong. The premise of Happiness is the realization of one's deep-seated dream.
Anthropologist René Girard has introduced the scapegoat mechanism which he believes humans evolved with— a tendency in difficulty to imitate others in blaming arbitrarily selected others or groups.
Humans basically have desires, and the reason for these desires is essentially to imitate the desires of others. What I want, for example, is that I want it more because someone else wanted it before me.
According to this logic, conflict, quarrels, and violence will eventually arise due to the similarity of desires between others and me.
Even in families where violence occurs, conflicts exist due to the similarity of desire. When looking at couples in conflict, both husbands and wives aim for a happy family. However, he says that what he experienced at the beginning of his marriage was unbearable sadness and pain.
Couples who meet through counseling are often in a state where they cannot express healthy emotions. Resentment towards the other person appears with anger, sadness, and despair.
The behavior of such parents also leaves scars on young children. Children who have been deprived of their lives due to domestic discord, violence, and neglect act at times so that their lives are no longer violated by their own self-destructive behavior. In addition, we would like to punish those who cannot be punished directly in the form of extreme self-violence. So what should we do?
First of all, I have to admit and accept that my happiness may not make others happy. I have to accept that what I've been thinking so far can be wrong.
I may feel happy to stay up late drinking and waking up my sleeping wife and children and at dawn lamenting my situation, but it is not giving joy to my family but pain and sadness.
Is it wise in harsh language to blame the wife for not respecting her husband more, and her children for not being polite to their father? Will the strong emotions and strong words and actions be considered for the happiness of the family, or rather will it not be for long-lasting wounds to the family?
The wife needs to realize that may be constantly pointing out and pushing her husband and children to be more perfect than they are, and considering that her duty and the path to happiness, may not be good for her family but gives pain and unhappiness and feelings of emotional abandonment.
There is always something to learn from suffering. You need to learn that the way you think and the way you want happiness doesn't exist in the world. Happiness in reality depends on how much we can compromise in the way the other person wants and how much we can agree on the way we compromised. The farther away you are from your own thoughts, self-pity, and your own ways, the closer happiness will come.
