“Are we happier because of the joy and fulfillment that we derive from our attachments in life, or does the pain that comes from our attachments prevent us from finding true peace and happiness?”

This is a journal topic I was given last year in my Honors 102 class. I was randomly re-reading through my old files and decided that I wanted to share this with my lovely readers, so here is my response to the prompt:

It is hard to say it is untrue that our attachments bring us much pain. Of course our attachments bring us pain. They bring us pain when someone we love dies and we have to grieve the loss of them. They bring us pain when someone we love or care about decides they do not wish to be a part of our lives any more. They bring us pain when we realize we care too much about someone who does not care about us the same way. They bring us pain when someone we love or care about betrays us or hurts us in some way. However, I think it is wrong to say that these attachments prevent us from being truly happy. Of course it is true that our attachments bring us pain, but that pain is not eternal. We can move on and let go of these types of pain and be happy.

I think it is really sad if someone believes that attachments only bring pain. You have to have been hurt really badly by someone or multiple someones to believe that sort of thing. If attachments really only brought us pain, I believe we would have evolved to stop being attached. I wonder what has to happen to someone for them to give up on attachments. I wonder if the love of their life betrayed them, so they think that love is not true. I wonder if they grew up in an environment where their family did not love them properly, so they do not understand love. If you believe that attachments only bring pain, I hope one day you understand differently. I hope you find someone that refuses to give up on you. I hope you find someone who is willing to stick around and break down all your walls. I hope you find someone who loves you so unconditionally that you start to believe in love again. Love is a beautiful thing, and no one should have to live without it.

Yeah, love is truly beautiful, and attachments are truly important. We could not exist as we do without attachments. In fact, it is impossible to survive without any level of social interaction because people need to be social. If we need to be social, then consequently we form attachments to those we interact with most. It is impossible to put into words how much we truly depend on attachments in this life. We need to have people close to us that we can rely on in our worst moments and enjoy our best moments with. I don’t know how you can be happy without being truly attached in some way. Otherwise, you float through life in an incredibly lonely and unfulfilled existence. If you are not attached in any way to anything at all, then it must be that you do not have any human interaction at all. It is impossible to interact socially and not form attachments.

Another matter is that just because it brings us pain doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have it. Negative emotions like grief and sadness are a part of life and are healthy. We experience the bad emotions because there are good emotions. Everyone experiences bad emotions in life; it is just a part of the experience. You cannot avoid being hurt in this life, but you can have a say in who hurts you.

In other words, it is absolutely essential to our existence that we have attachments. No one can be a healthy individual without attachments. They make us who we are.