Redefining Happiness with Miette Hope
On the bus ride home, you wake up to realize you've missed your stop. Outside you try to determine how far away from home you really are. The rows of strangers turn as you walk by, each showing you a different picture on their phone. You walk down an aisle bombarded with upscale lunches and streams of endless beach vacations. Rushing down the stairs you decide to stop into a corner store. One by one, the people in front of you turn around to show you their new clothes - outfits manicured perfectly from head to toe. Looking down at yourself your clothes don't seem to fit right anymore. Did they shrink or did you grow? Pushing through the door to leave, shockingly you're greeted by a hoard of your closest friends - eager to show you pictures of last night's party you were too anxious to leave the apartment to make an appearance at. You look down at the processed food in your hands and ask yourself - is this what happy people do?
Photo by Shannon Sullivan
When Miette Hope asked her friends: what do you think happy people do?, everyone gave different answers. While we may never know, her lyrics beg the question while maneuvering through her own career aspirations, self-defeating thoughts, and knowing there’s never a simple answer to life’s biggest questions.
Most everyone has days where they feel like they’re stuck - in a cycle of apathy, questionable decisions, or self-sabotage. Miette Hope is an artist who is all too familiar with the struggle between futility and mental health: “rather than chalking it up to a bad month or factors outside of my control I usually decide it's something to do with who I am or that I don't have what it takes to succeed.” What separates Miette is her ability to express these feelings in a way her audience can relate to. However, she admits that too often, “it’s easy to compare yourself to the people around you and feel like you're not doing enough.”
By now we are all familiar with the pitfalls of social media and the side effects of scrolling through a highway of other people's highlight reels. As an artist trying to figure out how to live her life in the best way she can, Miette is no stranger to this. She told us, “In the age of information, it feels like we have too much access to other people's lives and we all choose to display only the best parts. I found myself looking at everyone seeming so happy and wanting to be like them but feeling like an outsider.”
No matter how put together your life may seem, no matter how positive and ideal your outward facing persona may be; it all means nothing if you're not doing the work to address your mental health. While there are so many ways to cope with the challenge of finding our own happiness, short-term fixes to long-term problems are always tempting solutions.
“A lot of the time it feels like I'm just searching for the next vice to spike my serotonin temporarily that in reality will be harmful in the long term. Being a 20-something artist figuring life out as I go can feel super overwhelming so sometimes all I can do is take it moment by moment.”
While she may still ask herself, ‘am I doing this right?’ Miette is choosing to be proactive in taking control over her music, and in turn using her craft to fight off her at times overwhelming emotions.
As someone who admittedly defines her identity through the success of her career, she has always wanted to be a producer but “felt intimidated by the lack of female representation in the field.” During the pandemic, when live music was largely put on pause, Miette found the space in her life to begin learning production and take control over exactly how her music sounds. The ability to have authority over her creative expression from start to finish, Miette said, “changed my entire relationship with music and really opened up the possibilities of what I could accomplish. I felt like I finally found my sound when I produced my first song, and even though I'm still learning what I want to sound like I'm closer than I ever have been.”
Photo by Shannon Sullivan
When asked what the future holds for Miette, she emphasized that the catharsis of songwriting and connecting with listeners in an honest way will remain her priority: “for as long as I can remember, having a creative outlet has been my saving grace. To me, writing music is therapy. I feel I've been given the gift of a voice and a means to express myself and with that gift comes the responsibility of sharing it with those that may connect with it.” She continued on to tell us, “I chose to pursue a career in music not because I want to play stadiums or see my name in lights but because it feels like I need it to survive.” Demonstrated with her latest single Happy People, Miette Hope pursues finding herself in the chaos of life; using her voice to help give direction to anyone else who may feel lost.