Why I Abandoned My Quest for Omniscience

I used to be a big believer in the importance of knowing THE TRUTH. It always seemed very important to me to know the truth about things, particularly other people's feelings and opinions about me. Because I am super self-absorbed, apparently. I wanted to know things like, Do my friends secretly think my haircut is stupid? Does my boyfriend really think I'm the prettiest girl in the world? Does my mom think I'm obnoxious? I felt very strongly that I would rather know THE TRUTH and be miserable, than be misled and deluded and happy. (I also felt that most constantly happy people were probably happy because they were too stupid to know better.) Unfortunately, my strongly-held convictions were based on two faulty assumptions:

1) That people have absolute feelings and opinions that are unchanging and completely knowable.
2) That my happiness should in some way be dependent on the feelings and opinions of others.

I don't really believe those things anymore, for a lot of reasons. One big reason for my change in philosophy was the end of a 4-year-long, mostly disastrous relationship. A lot of my happiness at the time depended on what my boyfriend thought of me, and when the relationship imploded for the final time, all I wanted was validation. I was basically OK with the fact that the relationship was over, but it had ended badly enough that I wasn't sure if he had ever actually loved me. I felt that I needed to know whether he had or not; it felt like everything hinged on that fact. If he had never loved me, then the last 4 years of my life had been a waste and I should be appropriately miserable and ashamed. If he had loved me at some point, then that made everything OK. Until I knew THE TRUTH, I couldn't let it go.

Unfortunately, there were some serious obstacles between me and THE TRUTH. For one, I had vowed (in a quite dramatic fashion, as is my way) never to speak to my ex-boyfriend again. For another, even if I broke my promise and asked him directly, there was no guarantee that he would answer the question honestly. During our relationship he had lied to me about a wide variety of things, and would change his mind often and abruptly. He could also be pretty manipulative. So it was possible that even if he never loved me, he would lie and say he did in an attempt to earn my forgiveness. Or if he had loved me, he might lie and say he didn't in an attempt to hurt me. And I'd never know for sure if he was telling me the truth.

This puzzle drove me crazy for quite awhile. Finally, after a lot of obsessing, I was forced to accept a simple fact:

There is no objective way for me to know, without a doubt, the true thoughts, feelings, and opinions of another person. There is no knowable TRUTH when it comes to someone else's inner life.

Once I accepted that fact, I was immediately faced with another problem. If my happiness depended upon knowing THE TRUTH about my last relationship, and there was no way for me to know THE TRUTH, then how was I supposed to know how to feel? Briefly, I considered the possibility of floating through the rest of my life in an emotional limbo. If anyone asked me how I was doing, I'd say, "Well, I'm either completely worthless or I'm doing alright - the answer is locked in my ex-boyfriend's head." I ultimately rejected that idea as being potentially off-putting to future acquaintances. Then I considered just assuming the worst (that he'd never loved me), in accordance with Neurotics' Rule #547, and just feeling shitty about myself for the rest of my life. I had to reject that possibility as well, because it seemed like it would require a lot of energy, and was probably unsustainable. Finally, I settled on a solution that had quite possibly never occurred to me before.

I could just say fuck it and be happy anyway.

My self-esteem, self-image, happiness, all that, didn't have to depend on other people! I didn't have to have all the facts, all the time! I could choose to be happy just because! I was on the verge of alerting the news media about my discovery when I realized that this was probably what the constantly happy people had realized ages ago. I'll be honest, for a moment I contemplated punching all those people in the face. "Let's see you choose to be happy after I give you a black eye, sucka!" In the end, though, I decided to put my new knowledge to use and just get over it.

So now instead of constantly searching for the THE TRUTH upon which to base my happiness, I live by these two rules instead:

1) Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.
2) Don't let your happiness depend on anyone else; they're all liars anyway.

Also, rainbows and puppy dogs or whatever.