The BIG Three

In our search for happiness there are  whole slew of factors that we can take into account -- health, relationships, work, attitude, environment, religion, and many more. But what if you just want the quick and easy, Cliff's Notes version of happiness? Simple: Start with three questions:

1) What do I want to do?

2) Who do I want to do it with?

3) Where do I want to do it?

If you can come up with clear and comprehensive answers to these three questions, you are well on your way to creating a fulfilling, exciting, happy life.

1) What do you want to do? First and foremost, this question gets at your vocation, your calling in life. What makes your heart sing? What sets your soul on fire? It's probably best not to answer this question with a job title or traditional career name. "I want to be an architect," is not enough. What do you really love to do? What actions, activities, behaviors, etc. do you find both challenging and fulfilling? Carry this beyond work and into all of your life. Make your bucket list. What do you want to do before you die? What mountains (literal or metaphorical) do you want to climb? What things would you like to do just for the hell of it? Brainstorm the entire spectrum from the most sublime to the most ridiculous. Then, make sure that you do at least some of the things you love to do each day. And begin to design your life so that you can add more and more of these activities on a day-to-day basis.

2) Who do you want to do it with? Who do you want to spend your minutes, hours and days with? Family (maybe), friends, spouses, partners, lovers, colleagues -- who are the people around whom you feel most energized and alive? If your days are spent filled with people who don't make your preferred companions list, time to get busy re-designing your life to include more and more of the people who are most important to you. And, of course, remember to stay open to the fantastic new people who are just waiting to enter your world!

3) Where do you want to do it? Where in the world do you want to live? In what type of climate, environs, ecosystem, etc. do you feel most supported? In what kind of mini-environment do you want to work? What type of workspace gives you the best opportunity to be all that you can be, and have fun doing it?

By exploring and answering The BIG Three, you are looking at the holy trinity of happiness factors -- work, relationships and environment. Many of us spend more time working than any other single activity in our lives, with the possible exception of sleeping. If you're not happy in your work, you will not have an overall happy life. Period. 

More and more scientific studies and surveys are discovering that relationships are the single most important component of happiness. If you do not have enjoyable, interesting, loving relationships, even if you like your work, you will not be truly happy. 

Finally, environment can impact your happiness, like it or not. If you are stressed by the noise, pollution, dirt, bad weather, etc. in your environment then it's much harder to feel relaxed and happy. Your environment may never be perfect, and attempting to make it so may even be counterproductive, but you can make it better simply by the choices you make. 

So, here's a great way to end 2009 -- do a Happiness Audit. Ask yourself The BIG Three. Write down your answers. Then begin to brainstorm a list of possible actions you can take in 2010 to do more of what you love, spend more time with people you love, and create and discover more environments that you love. Post the list on your refrigerator, above your desk, or in another location where it is readily visible, and add to it whenever a new idea pops into your head. There it is, right before your very eyes -- your simple blueprint to a fantastically happy new year!

Five Happiness Traps

You think you know what it takes to find happiness. Just follow the yellow brick road, right? Not so fast! The road to happiness is riddled with sinkholes, traps, and dead ends according to Dan Baker and Cameron Stauth, authors of What Happy People Know. Specifically they enumerate Five Happiness Traps:

1) Trying to buy happiness

2) Trying to find happiness through pleasure

3) Trying to be happy by resolving the past

4) Trying to be happy by overcoming weakness

5) Trying to force happiness

While they spend much more time explaining trap number one than any of the others, we've already explored it a few times on this blog, so here's a quick and dirty synopsis of each trap. Just enough information so you'll know them when you see them and hopefully avoid them like the H1N1 virus!

1) Trying to buy happiness is a futile and misguided endeavor. As we've explained before, once you rise above the poverty level each increase in income produces a smaller and smaller corresponding  rise in happiness. Still, many of us persist in believing the more money = more happiness equation. Or, as was said back in the 80's, "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." What they win, though, is usually a miserable, shallow life! In a large survey 89% of Americans expressed the opinion that the U.S., as a whole, is "far too materialistic." Ironically, approximately the same percentage said they'd really like to have more! As the authors advise, "Financial security is fine. But it's not the path to happiness."

2) Trying to find happiness through pleasure is another dead end street. Sure, everyone wants some pleasure in their life, but maxing out on pleasure does not equal maximum happiness. What happens is that you become accustomed to whatever level of pleasure you experience, and the amount of stimulus it takes to make you happy starts to rise. You end up on what researchers call  "the hedonic treadmill," chasing pleasure faster and faster but with less and less resulting happiness.

3) Trying to be happy by resolving the past is the path of traditional clinical psychology. According to this school of thought remembering and reprocessing past trauma will free you from it, and you will automatically become happier. There are only three problems with his approach -- it takes a long time, it's very costly, and it doesn't work! Mere talk and processing don't produce happiness; action and transcendence do. Moving forward, not moving backwards is the way to be happy. As Baker and Stauth say, "Your powers of intellect and spirit can create new meanings out of old memories."

4) Trying to be happy by overcoming weakness is the standard self-help approach, but this attempt, too, is ill conceived and ineffective. Working with your weaknesses is painful. Working with your strengths is fun. Which would you rather do? Trying to fix weaknesses is reactive; building upon your strengths is proactive. Finally, whatever you focus upon expands. Focusing upon your weaknesses in  fact pours energy into them. Focusing upon your strengths makes you stronger and more powerful, and then you are even more capable of building a joyous,  happy life.

5) Trying to force happiness is totally unnecessary and counterproductive. As the old Zen saying goes, "don't push the river, it flows by itself."Simple physics tells us that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Chase happiness and it runs away; try and force happiness, and it resists. The authors have identified 12 qualities of happiness on which you should put your attention. Develop these qualities, and happiness is the inevitable result. 

But whoa, twelve qualities sounds like a lot! Better leave those for another day. For today, just familiarize yourself with the Five Happiness Traps and don't be seduced by them. Appreciate what you have, enjoy simple pleasures, be present-centered, enjoy your strengths, and let the happiness flow! 

Why Aren't We Happier?

Why aren't we happier? In comparison to the rest of the known universe we've got it pretty damn good. With a cursory glance, you'd think we'd a be happy all the time, all the time... but we're not.

Happiness researchers tell us that on the whole people are no happier now than they were 50 years ago, even though we make alot more money, our homes are way bigger, crime rates are lower, the air is cleaner, and our overall quality of life is better. What gives?

Well, believe it or not, happiness takes work. Mere consumption will never make us happy. As I've reported in previous posts, money only buys happiness if it is buying your way out of poverty. Beyond that, the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in, and every increase in income produces a smaller and smaller rise in happiness or well being.

So what does produce happiness? Conscious actions that are well within your control. Here are some of them:

* Flow experiences

* Counting your blessings

* Random acts of kindness

* Forgiveness

* Enjoying small pleasures

* Taking care of your health

* Building strong relationships

1) Flow experiences are those times when you're truly in the zone, when what you're doing is so engaging that you are totally absorbed by it, and you completely lose track of time. Flow is brought on by your willing engagement in creative challenges that inspire you and require you to do your best. Watching football in your Lazy Boy Recliner ain't going to put you in flow! Flow comes from doing what you love to do at the highest level you can possibly do it. It's the ultimate fun.

2) Counting your blessings has nothing to do with resting on your laurels or being smug. It has everything to do with realizing what a great life you have -- full of wonderful people, exciting opportunities, natural beauty, and unlimited grace. The secret is in writing down the things you are grateful for -- at least five a day. Research finds that by noting what you are thankful for, you actually become happier! Are you the high tech type? Then throw away the diary and chart your gratitudes online at http://GratitudeLog.com

3)  Random acts of kindness are a great way of letting the inherent goodness of life pulse through you. And, lo and behold, doing something nice for somebody else makes you happier, too! Who'd have thunk it? Maybe there really is something to that "it's more blessed to give than receive" stuff. Don't overanalyze it, just do it. Be spontaneous and let the random acts be truly random -- no ulterior motives, no paybacks.

4) Forgiveness is not just some goody two shoes way to be, it's pure common sense. We all fuck up. We all need forgiveness. It's as simple as that. And we all need to forgive others as much as we need them to forgive us. People who forgive, who get over it and let it go, are much happier than people who hang onto old hurts, slights, and animosities. You aren't hurting others by not forgiving, you're hurting yourself. Be big in both heart and mind -- forgive.

5) Enjoying small pleasures it turns out is more critical to your happiness than chasing peak experiences. Sure it's nice to go on an incredible vacation every now and then or have a once in a lifetime adventure, but enjoyment on a day-to-day basis actually adds much more to your overall sense of well being. Small pleasures are all around you, but they are different for everyone. Be a happiness detective and find the mini-moments of happiness that are hidden in your life.

6) Taking care of your health may not actually make you that happy, but it will give you the capacity to enjoy life longer and more fully, and in that way experience more happiness. It's much harder to be happy when you're infirm, sick, run down, or completely out of shape. 

7) Building strong relationships is fun in and of itself. Maintaining those relationships is, for most people, a great source of happiness. You talk and laugh and eat and drink together. You partake in activities that both of you enjoy. You reminisce about the past, plan for the future, and enjoy the present together. For many people, relationships are the number one source of happiness!

Why aren't we happier? Because we don't consciously do these seven things. We float along waiting for the economy to improve, the weather to get better, or our favorite sports team to win, and we don't take responsibility for own happiness. Gregg Easterbrook author of The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse, puts it this way: "It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it. Most people take the path of least resistance."

But not you! No reason for you to be a "least resister." You can undertake the effort required to create happier life, a happier you. Get started now. The Lazy Boy Recliner won't even miss you.

Happiness Rituals

Athletes have performance rituals, musicians have pre-performance rituals, churches have ceremonial rituals, so why shouldn't you have Happiness Rituals? Tal Ben-Shahar, author of Happier, thinks you, me, and all God's children should.  Ben-Shahar defines a Happiness Ritual as any repetitive act that makes you happier -- happier both in the moment and in the long term. So, eating a whole chocolate cake, consuming an entire 12 pack of Bud, or any other sort of over-indulgence is not quite what he has in mind.

What he does have in mind are things like yoga, walking, meditation, journaling, a date with your spouse or partner once a week, etc. Things that may require a bit of effort at first but which produce positive results almost immediately, and on an ongoing basis. To make the activity into a ritual, though, you must do it on a regular basis for at least 30 days. That's how long psychologists tell us it take to create habit. And a Happiness Ritual is nothing more than a consciously chosen happiness habit.

We also have what we might call "unhappiness rituals" or "unhappiness habits," as well. These aren't addictions, but rather actions we continue to do, almost unconsciously, which actually sap, rather than nourish, our happiness. Things like mindlessly surfing the Internet, gossiping, watching way too much TV, and any other activity that we undertake too frequently and that leaves us feeling dulled or drained rather than energized qualifies as an unhappiness ritual.

You can increase your happiness substantially simply by increasing your Happiness Rituals and decreasing your unhappiness rituals. You don't have to change jobs or spouses, you don't have to move to a new house, state or continent, and you certainly don't have to reinvent yourself! You simply need to undertake small, simple acts that make you happy, and give up doing mindless stuff that no longer serves you.

Start small. Choose one, or at the most two, Happiness Rituals to add to your life. Have fun with them, but also take them seriously. Do the act, or acts, regularly for at least a month. Also choose one unhappiness ritual to jettison from your life. Just quit it cold turkey. Don't do it for at least a month and automatically the time you used to waste on it will be filled with something else, hopefully something more positive.

Don't know what to choose? Ask yourself two questions:

* What one thing, if I did it on a regular basis, would most improve my life?

* What one thing I do now, that if I quit doing it, would definitely improve my life?

Answer the questions. Operationalize the answers. And enjoy your new found happiness!

Gross National Happiness

The former King of Bhutan decided there must be a better way to measure a society's real success than Gross National Product (GNP). So, in 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck coined the term Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNH was his attempt to approach a country's well being from a more holistic perspective, one that balances both material and spiritual development. Since he was king at the time, he decided to use GNH as the guiding principle for Bhutan's overall planning process.

The king took into account four aspects of GNH -- economic, cultural, environmental, and governmental. Specifically he looked at:

1) Sustainable development

2) Preservation and promotion of cultural values

3) Conservation of the natural environment

4) Establishment of good governance

While this is not the place to enumerate the specifics of each of the four components, it is easy to see that this approach to GNH is much more sophisticated and comprehensive than merely counting how much money is spent in any given period, as is done with GNP or Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The underlying value stressed by GNH is that the overall well being of citizens is more important than merely increasing their rates of consumption. In other words, you can consume a shitload of products, services, and resources (i.e. spend a whole lot of money) and still not be truly happy. Furthermore, short term consumption, which may be fun in the moment, can lead to long term unhappiness, especially if that consumption is based upon unsustainable development, greed and selfishness, polluting the environment, and  corrupt government!

As you may have already guessed, though, GNH cannot be measured directly. Neither can you hook someone up to a Happy Meter or a Well Being Monitor to find out exactly how their life is going. What you can do, however, is measure those factors that in aggregate supposedly produce GNH. Med Yones, President of the International Institute of Management, has identified seven of those factors. They are:

1) Economic Wellness

2) Environmental Wellness

3) Physical Wellness

4) Mental Wellness

5) Workplace Wellness

6) Social Wellness

7) Political Wellness

Here are a few of the measurable components that make up each factor. 

1) Economic wellness is more than just GNP or average per capita income. It includes the overall debt of citizens, the ratio of prices to income levels, and the income distribution throughout the country. So, when the middle class continues to shrink and there is a bigger and bigger gap between the rich and the poor, like we have in the good ole US of A today, we are not exactly the paragons of economic wellness!

2) Environmental wellness is made up of simple measures like pollution, noise, and the safety of both human and other life forms. Trash the environment in the name of progress and environmental wellness goes into the crapper, too.

3) Physical wellness has to do with issues surrounding disease rates, longevity, use of prescription medication, physical capacity, etc. It's hard to be happy if you and/or the people around you are sick all the time.

4) Mental wellness, like physical wellness, uses direct surveys of citizens, as well as the overall use in the society of anti-depressants, and the rise and fall of the numbers of patients in psychotherapy as measurable components. Suffering on a mental level, like physical suffering reduces happiness greatly.

5) Workplace wellness is measured by employees self-reports about their happiness in the workplace as well as by unemployment rates, job changes, and the number and type of lawsuits filed against employers. Since during the majority of our lives we spend more time working than doing any other single activity, if we're not happy at work, we're just not very happy!

6) Social wellness looks at discrimination, divorce rates, crime rates, and once again lawsuits, as well as survey results. Even if these things don't look like they impact you directly they have a hidden and powerful impact upon both society and your individual quality of life.

7) Political wellness factors in the degree of individual freedom citizens have, the number of foreign conflicts the nation is involved in, the degree of local democracy, and citizen participation in the community.

So, what does all this talk of GNH and its component factors have to do with you? First, the same factors that make for a happy society or culture make for happy individuals. Mind these seven aspects of your own life, and you will experience greater wellness and higher levels of happiness. Secondly, thinking of the success of our communities and of our nation from the more holistic perspective of GHP, rather than from the overly simplistic measurements of GNP or GDP,  helps us decide who we want to vote for, who we want in leadership positions, and not just how they will vote on specific special interests, but how they will contribute to our overall happiness, both as individuals and as a nation. 

Gross National Happiness is one of the most useful concepts out there when it comes to happiness. It doesn't take into account everything, or really solve anything, but it does, as Jigme Singye Wangchuck hoped, help us create both a good life and a good society.

Happiness Activities

Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California Riverside, has written a powerful book on happiness that is based on solid, scientific research. Entitled The How of Happiness, it's the sort of book you need to read if you take happiness seriously, or if you're going to get a PhD in happiness. 

First she tells us that only 40% of what makes for happiness is within our day-to-day control. In her opinion a full 50% of our happiness is due to genetic factors which create the "happiness set point" that I have discussed in previous postings. 10% of our happiness is determined by conditions such as wealth, martial status, etc., which while influenceable by us are not within are control on a daily basis.

And even the 40% of happiness over which we indeed do have control requires a lot of work on our part. Dr. Lyubomirsky does not see happiness as a mere child's game. The work she suggests we do has to do with practicing a dozen happiness-inducing activities. Here's a list of the activities she has identified as helping to produce true happiness:

1) Expressing gratitude

2) Cultivating optimism

3) Avoiding over-thinking and social comparisons

4) Practicing acts of kindness

5) Nurturing social relationships

6) Developing strategies for coping

7) Learning to forgive

8) Increasing flow experiences

9) Savoring life's joys

10) Committing to your goals

11) Practicing religion and/or spirituality

12) Taking care of your body

That's a pretty extensive list! Look it over and right away you'll see you're much better at some of these activities than you are at others. The idea is not to undertake activities in each of the 12 categories everyday. Hell, you wouldn't have time to do anything else! Instead, choose two or three types of activities that really excite you, and consciously work in those arenas. So, let's say that practicing acts of kindness and developing coping strategies both get you jazzed. Start doing more kind things on a daily basis. Read a book on coping mechanisms, attend a lecture or workshop, or talk with a psychotherapist. Focus on these two happiness-inducing categories for a period of time and see what your results are.

Eventually, you may want to work your way around to some of the activities that may be harder for you, like learning to forgive, or taking care of your body. There is no right or wrong order here. Do any of these activities any time you can with the long term goal being creating a balanced, harmonious, integrated life in which your are doing literally everything within your power to experience happiness on an ongoing basis.

Don't stress over the list, have fun with it! Create games in various categories. Work on some types of activities  with friends, colleagues, or family members. As Forest Gump might say, "Happy is as happy does." And whatever that means, though it may not be proven scientifically, I think it's still damn good advice!

Love & Happiness

Almost without thinking about it, many of us have love as one of the most important ingredients in the Universal Happiness Recipe. We want to give love, we want to receive love, but most of all we want to "be in love." And if we were, if we were in love all the time, we think we'd be happy. Hmmmm... maybe.

Love, as the term is usually bantered about, refers to just one type of love -- romantic love, or what the ancient Greek philosophers called eros. Before we even look at another type of love, I think that we can clear up a lot of confusion merely by exploring a few modern myths about romantic love or eros. And, so, here are four of the most prevalent myths:

1) The defining feature of true love is a passion that never fades. True, romantic love is hot and heavy on the passion scale, at least at first. That's why it is so thrilling and so addicting. You are totally enamored by the other person, and your life seems qualitatively different, i.e., a helluva lot better, than it did before they entered it. The only problem is that passion, like everything else in the universe that has a beginning, also has an end. It may burn bright for awhile, a long while, if you're lucky. It may smolder, it may rekindle, it may burst out into an occasional flame, but it will not last at the level of red hot intensity forever. Understanding this simple truth will help you avoid disappointment, depression and dismay, and insure that you don't build your entire edifice of happiness on the shifting sands of passion.

2) If you feel passionate about each other, you should marry. Marriage is a legal and civil agreement. Passion is a physical and very uncivil emotion. Talk about your proverbial oil and water! You don't have to be Margaret Mead in Samoa to see as a participant-observer in our culture that marriage is one of the chief causes of unhappiness! In large part because it is undertaken many times in the heat of passion! Passion is to be enjoyed for as long as it lasts. In that way it contributes to your happiness. Trying to do anything else with passion, other than enjoy it, will surely contribute to your unhappiness.

3) If the passion ceases or diminishes, you should split up because it wasn't true love. If you equate true love with passion, love, like passion, will always end. If you believe that passion is the most important ingredient in your intimate partnerships, then you'll go through a whole shitload of partners! Here's the given -- the passion will diminish. Even if you read all those hokey books like How to Light His Fire or How to Light Her Fire, the passion will diminish. Expecting it not to merely adds to your unhappiness.

4) If you find the right person you'll have passion and romance forever. Yeah, and Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny will all come to your 50th anniversary celebration! The book of Ecclesiastes knew it, The Byrds knew it, and now you know it -- to every thing there is a season. The season of romance and passion is not a 50 year ride. You can have joyful, wonderful  relationships even after the bird of passion has flown the coop. 

And that brings us to the second kind of love that those wise, old, ancient Greek dudes knew all about -- agape. Agape is more about compassion than passion. It has been described as "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined." Compassion doesn't require kegs of testosterone or minivans full of estrogen to fuel it. Compassion is love unsullied by desire. 

It goes without saying that passion plays an important role in life. Who'd want to live a life without it? What isn't said nearly enough is that while passion is finite, compassion can be infinite. We may feel it first and foremost for those to whom we are closest, but the ripples of compassion can spread outside of our family and our small circle of friends to anyone,  to everyone we encounter. 

True happiness, while experienced individually, is not selfish in nature. Happiness begets, feeds upon and grows more happiness. It's like a positive virus, that has the potential to infect the entire planet. And the carrier is love, love in the form of compassion. 

The feeling of compassion, in and of itself, brings you happiness. The expression of compassion, brings happiness to others, and lo and behold, brings you even more happiness. Then, the person who experiences your compassion is much more likely to be compassionate to others and the happiness virus spreads. 

And before you know it, you are part of a revolution -- the happiness revolution! Compassion rules! And yeah, those bright, wild, crazy flashes of passion, they're pretty nice, too!

How to Make Yourself Really, Really Unhappy!

Want to drive yourself crazy? Want to make yourself really, really unhappy? It's simple -- refuse to accept reality. Try and control that which is out of your control. Do that (and don't we all do that to one extent or another), and I guarantee you that you will be one unhappy dude or dudette.

A couple of posts ago I talked about what is under your control, and, lo and behold, it tuns out that the only thing you even have the possibility to control is you. Your actions and your attitudes are within your sphere of control. Everything else -- no way, Jose!

If you have kids or loved ones or even noisy neighbors, you know that you can't control others. You can at times influence them, in either positive or negative ways, but you can't control them. Your sphere of influence actually includes everyone whose life intersects with yours in anyway whatsoever. In other words you have the potential to influence a whole lot more people than you've ever imagined.

Most of us don't even come close to maximizing our sphere of influence, though. Why? Because we don't do a very good job of controlling ourselves. Your influence is the greatest when your character shines the brightest. When you are impeccable in all your actions and interactions with others, they will be much more open to your influence. Lack integrity, lack self-control, though, and your sphere of influence begins to shrivel.

There is one aspect of our relationship with reality that we can control, however, and it is our interpretation of reality. As happiness researcher and University of Virginia professor Jonathan Haidt says, " Events in the world affect us through our interpretation of them, so if we can control our interpretation, we can control our world." Furthermore, your interpretation is what fuels your action or reaction.

Imagine: You go to work and one of your coworkers is short and snippy and just plain bitchy with you. One interpretation is that she must not like you. Another is that she's just a dyed-in-the-wool, cold-hearted bitch! A third is that she's had a a rough day, week, childhood, or life, and so she's learned dysfunctional behaviors, like taking out her pain on other people. How you treat her will depend to a large degree on your interpretation of how she treats you. 

The worse thing you can do, the thing that is most likely to increase your unhappiness exponentially, is to move beyond just not accepting reality to actively resisting it. Byron Katie, a contemporary spiritual teacher and author, puts it this way: "You scare yourself stuck because what you resists persists." In other words, the energy of your resistance feeds the very thing that you don't like, thus strengthening and perpetuating it. 

So, let's say there's something going on in he world that you don't like -- event, person, whatever. You say or think, either out loud or to yourself,  this thing makes me so unhappy! You've got these tools at your disposal:

1) Acceptance. Even if you're going to actively work to change things, you will have much better leverage if you first accept things as they are.

2) Interpretation. Maybe it's not reality that's gone awry, but merely your interpretation of reality. Change your interpretation to a more positive and empowering one, and like magic your happiness level increases!

3) Expand your sphere of influence. Besides controlling yourself, the way to expand your influence with others is to get to know them, understand them, and really care about them. When they experience you coming from that perpsective, they will be much more open to being influenced by you.

4) Choose not to give a damn! That may sound harsh, but it's a very effective strategy and an integral part of life. When events or people get way too frustrating, you can many times choose to focus your energy, attention and care in another direction. Not giving a damn may not quite be acceptance, but it can be a step in that direction, and a way to free yourself from an enmeshed, reactionary position. 

In conclusion, if you want to make yourself miserable, oppose reality. With the application of simple logic then, we can see that the reverse is also true -- if you want to be happy, accept what is. That doesn't mean you can't work to change it or influence it, it only means that your first step is always acceptance. As Katie says, "When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind and fearless." And that's the kind of action out of which true happiness grows. 

The Happiest Place in America

Want to live in the "happiest place in America?" Well, then you're going to have to head west and move to California's 14th Congressional District. According to the Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index, a survey and ranking of all 435 U.S. congressional districts, California's 14th, which includes the towns of Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and Mountain View has the highest levels of happiness or well being. 

On what criteria is this conclusion based? The survey included six dimensions:

1) Life evaluation

2) Emotional health

3) Physical health

4) Healthy behavior

5) Work environment

6) Basic access 

And while you're probably not going to back up the jalopy, ala the Beverly Hillbillies, and head to Sunnyvale, there is quite a bit we can learn from the results of this survey. So, let's walk through the dimensions one by one.

1) Life evaluation. This dimension is fairly simple. Researchers asked participants to rate their life on a 1-10 scale with 10 being the best possible life and 1 being sheer hell. They were then asked to rate what they expect their life to be like five years from now on the same scale. As we've noticed time and time again in the happiness research literature, much of our happiness is based on our own subjective beliefs and feelings about how good our life is. That's why personal habits like choice, focus and gratitude are so important -- they raise our overall evaluation of the quality of our life.

2) Emotional health in this survey was measured by asking respondents about their experience yesterday --- who they were with, what they did, and how they felt. Specifically they were asked whether they experienced:

* Smiling and laughter

* Being treated with respect

* Enjoyment

* Happiness

* Worry

* Sadness

* Anger

* Stress

* Learning or doing something interesting

There was also one question about whether they had ever received a diagnosis of depression. If you look at the nine items listed above it's easy to see which items would help produce greater levels of well being, and which would tend to reduce it. Perhaps the two "sleeper" dimensions are "being treated with respect" and "learning or doing something interesting." As you do an emotional health scan of your own day-to-day life, you might do well to keep those two hidden dimensions in mind.

3) Physical health is an element that we all know has a huge influence on happiness. The components of physical health discussed in this survey were:

* Body Mass Index (BMI)

* Disease burden

* Sick days

* Physical pain

* Daily energy

* History of disease

* Daily health experiences

Obviously some aspects of your physical health are under your control and some are not. As a rule of thumb, though, the physically healthier you are, the happier you are. And that's where the next dimension comes in.

4) Healthy Behaviors. No, there are not 1001 things you have to do to be healthier. In fact, the survey only looked at three major categories of healthy behaviors

* Smoking

* Healthy diet

* Exercise

If you still smoke, you know you're putting your health at risk, and nothing I can say is going to make you quit. It's as simple as can be -- quit smoking, improve your health! And, long term, your happiness. While there are a bunch of conflicting claims out there surrounding diet, the basics are fairly well agreed upon. Michael Pollan pretty well sums it up in his book In Defense of Food when he says "Eat food. Not much. Mostly plants." Exercise comes in all types and varieties. The only really important thing is that you find a style, or styles, of exercise that you like, or can at least tolerate, and do it regularly. Bottom line -- healthier behaviors lead to a happier life.

5) Work Environment is extremely important in terms of your happiness because you spend more time working than doing any other single activity (other than sleeping) throughout the majority of your life. The three components of work life measured by the survey were:

* Satisfaction with the work itself

* Being able to use your strengths in your work

* Working in an organization that has a culture of partnership and trust

To do a personal survey ask yourself: Do you find your work intrinsically satisfying? In other words, irrespective of rewards, pay, feedback, etc. do you just really like what you do? Second, do you get to do the types of things your best at, exhibit your finest qualities and use your most cherished skills? Three, do you feel that you are trusted by your supervisor and co-workers? Do you feel that the organization and its management foster partnership rather than hierarchy? These three factors are the ones that promote the most workplace satisfaction and thus contribute most to your work-related happiness.

6) Basic access. The survey asked participants to respond to 13 questions about access to:

* Food

* Shelter

* Healthcare

* Satisfying place to live

Access to food includes being able to get fresh fruits and vegetables and the distance one has to go to obtain groceries. Shelter with the quality, affordability and general satisfaction with one's housing. Healthcare includes whether or not one has insurance, availability of doctors, dentists, emergency services, etc. And finally, the overall dimension of "satisfying place to live" includes things like parks, recreational opportunities, neighborhood amenities, city resources, etc. And while a place does not have to be perfect for you to be happy, you can improve the overall quality of your city or town by putting energy into improving basic access to these important components of life.

As I've said before, your happiness isn't based on geography. What surveys like this one provide us, though, is a way to improve our own lives and our own communities by looking at the external elements that contribute to happiness and how we can maximize them both individually and collectively. Focus on these six dimensions in your own life, and happier days await you!

Is Happiness Within Your Control?

Here's an interesting question: What do you control in life? When I ask seminar and workshop participants this questions, answers range from "Nothing!" to "Everything! I create my own reality. I control my own destiny!" As usual, when faced with any two extremes, the truth lies closer to the mean. 

With a little reflection, most people agree that about the only thing really control is themself. And even that control may be more theoretical than actual, as anyone who has ever tried to go on a diet, or adopt a new exercise program, knows. 

But, short of someone physically overpowering you, you have the potential to control your own actions. No one can make you do anything. Oh, sure, they can ask, cajole, demand, threaten, etc., but they really can't make you. You control your own actions. And as a rule of thumb, the better you are at controlling your actions, the happier you will be. 

For one, you will do what you really want to do. More enjoyable activities = more happiness. Two, you will do what you really need to do, or have obligated yourself to do. And, even though these actions may not produce immediate gratification, they will add to your long term happiness, in part, at least, by making the people around you happy. Third, controlling yourself, builds your "control muscles," so to speak, and so you begin to produce more and more happiness on an ongoing basis.

The second part of yourself that you can control is your attitudes, your emotions. "Wait just one doggone minute," I hear some of you protesting, "I can't control my feelings. Sometimes I just feel hurt, or angry, or sad, and it's not under my control." OK, I believe you. We've all had experiences where something happens and an instantaneous feeling flares up and overwhelms us. Sometimes our immediate feelings are not under our control, but the overall emotional tenor of our life is. And it all has to do with our thoughts.

Imagine that you're driving to work, doing your best Jeff Gordon imitation because you just happen to be a couple of minutes late. All of a sudden, someone pulls out in front of you in a (insert brand of car you don't like here), and you have to slam your brakes damn near through the floorboard in order to avoid a fiery, bloody crash. Adrenaline pumps through your blood stream, the fight or flight response kicks in, and all of a sudden you are so damn angry that you'll kick the Dalai Lama's ass, if he so much as looks at you sideways. 

But within seconds the chemicals that flooded your body and brain subside. Now you are back in control, and what you choose to feel is up to you, up to what you choose to think. You could think "That son-of-a-bitching (insert deragatory term for religious, racial or ethnic group you don't like here) he almost killed me!" And then your mind is off to the races blaming, screaming, feeling sorry for itself, and starting into its litany of everything that's wrong with the world. 

Or, you could choose to be relieved. "Whew! Close call." Or grateful "Thank God, I wasn't killed." It's up to you. How you feel about, describe, talk about, and even remember, the accident that never really happened, is completely up to you. And it's easy to see which type of responses would produce immediate and long term happiness and which would have the exact opposite effect.

Sure, there are alot of other things in the world over which you have little or no control, but so what? We'll talk about those another time. For now just focus on yourself. What are the actions and attitudes over which you'd like to exert more control? What opportunities do you have to build your control muscles day-to-day by doing so? 

Focus upon yourself, not in a selfish way but in a positive way, in a way where you take more responsibility for what you do and feel, and thus more responsibility for your own happiness. If a good portion of your happiness is in your own hands, think how much easier it is for you to be happy. Do things that make you happy. Let the positive thoughts you choose to think be the building blocks for the overall emotional tenor of your life. 

Experiment. Have fun with it. Being all deadly serious ain't going to make you happy! Learn to control yourself, increase your happiness. It's as simple as that. 

Out of Gratitude Happiness Grows

Dozens of times a day I'm reminded that happiness is a function of focus. Walking down the street I can choose to focus upon the cigarette butts and fast food wrappers in the gutter or the endless, azure blue sky above. Talking with the person next to me in line at the coffee shop I can focus upon their whiney, negative tone or upon the slice of Spirit than shines surreptitiously within them.

Happiness is all about choices. And that's where gratitude comes in. We have so friggin' much to be grateful for that most of the time, we forget to be grateful at all! We take it all for granted. I recently received an email from a friend who about a year ago moved to Australia. She was all excited because the house they've just rented, unlike the house they had been living in for the last year, has central heat, air conditioning, a washer & dryer, and plenty of hot water. The things that many of us just assume our lives will always contain are the very things for which others feel profound gratitude. 

Though gratitude as an emotion is always felt in the now, the mental focus that produces gratitude, and thus happiness, can be upon the past, present or future. So, let's look at each of these chronological arenas to see how we can harvest gratitude across the full spectrum of time.

1) Past. Close your eyes and take a minute to think about all the people, places and things in your past that you are truly grateful for. Yes, I mean really do that right now. Don't keep reading -- do the damn exercise! Thank you.

Your past is a veritable gold mine of gratitude. Family, friends, teachers, authors, artists, musicians -- all kinds of people have played important roles in your life and have helped you become who you are today. As Margaret Visser writes in her new book The Gift of Thanks: Roots and Rituals of Gratitude, "Gratitude is always about paying attention, deliberately beholding and appreciating the other." Remembering them on a regular basis will not only increase your happiness, but also encourage you to show some of that same kindness to others, thus producing an across-time, happiness ripple effect. 

One other thing you can do with past gratitude. Take time to thank those "past people" who still fill your heart with gratitude today. If they're still alive, send them a note or a letter. No, not an email, and surely not a truncated, little text. Actually write out your thanks in your own handwriting (you know "cursive," like you learned in second grade) and mail it to them. If they're already dead just send them a silent prayer or message of gratitude. The past may be gone, but the gratitude, and its impact upon your happiness, remains. All you've got to do is focus upon it.

2) Present. Look around. What do you currently have in your life that you're thankful for? People, places, things, opportunities, experiences -- the list is endless. And yet, most days, thanks and gratitude is the furthest thing from our minds. A huge part of gratitude is just noticing. Standing in the hot shower after my morning walk, the thought spontaneously erupted, "Damn, I like showers!" Small things, little things, forgotten things, and nearly invisible things, are all things to which we are unconsciously grateful.

Here's another simple exercise that will build your gratitude muscles and make you happier. Each day think of five things you're grateful for. And be creative. Don't say your dog and beer everyday! Five things that warm your heart or bring a smile to your face that are in your life today. Don't have five things? Time to change your life!

The point is so obvious I'm almost embarrassed to belabor it -- each and everyday our lives are filled with an incredible richness of things about which we can be thankful. Want to be happier? Focus upon those things.

3) Future. How can the future make you happier, it isn't even here yet? Enter the wonderful mental power of anticipation. Think about all the cool, fun, interesting and exciting things you're planning to do. Sure, you haven't done them yet, but just anticipating doing them gives you a nice underlying hum of happiness. Aren't you grateful for all these upcoming opportunities that await you?

One of the most interesting things about anticipation is that so many times we get more happiness from anticipating an event than we do from the event itself. We can get through many a boring day at work anticipating the fun of the upcoming holidays. But then when the holidays arrive and we are stuck for days eating too much, arguing too much, and watching way too much sports with our crazy, dysfunctional family, the stark, cold reality sets in! By the time New Years rolls around, we're starting to believe the old adage that your friends are God's way of apologizing for your family!

Gratitude is a simple thing. So simple that it gets covered over by the busyness and chaos of our lives.  Want to experience the maximum of happiness in your life? Focus upon all you have to be grateful for in each of these three arenas -- your past, your present, and your future. Fill your head, your heart, your day with thoughts of gratitude. Thanksgiving is just around the proverbial corner. Why wait? Start being thankful today. 

The Happiness Formula

Martin Seligman is the father of  Positive Psychology. An author and University of Pennsylvania professor, he started the nation's first Positive Psychology degree program. And, like any good social scientist, he likes to use formulas. He's even come up with a formula for happiness. Here it is:

H = S + C + V

Got it? Good. Oh, you want some explanation? OK, here's a quick run through.

"H" obviously stands for happiness. "S" is your Happiness Set Point that we talked about in couple of previous posts. "C" stands for conditions, and "V" is voluntary activities. So, what Dr. Seligman is telling us is that your overall happiness is a combination of  your happiness set point, the conditions of your life, and the voluntary activities in which you partake. Let's explore this a bit further. 

Your happiness set point, as you probably remember, is biological in nature. It's a sort of genetic given. It's the innate level of happiness to which you automatically return over time, even after something super wonderful or something tragic happens in your life. Think of it as the level of happiness at which you are most comfortable. 

Now, while there's some level of disagreement over whether you can change your happiness set point, most researchers seems to think that without a concerted and conscious program of self-transformation, it's consistent throughout your lifetime.

Conditions include both personal conditions and life conditions. Some personal conditions like height, eye color, male pattern baldness, etc. are unchangeable. Other external conditions can be changed but are subject to what's called "the adaption principle." This means that you do something like increase your income or buy a bigger house, and at first it makes you really happy, but then you become used to it, and it no longer gives you a thrill. You've become "adapted" to it, and so you return to your happiness set point.

There are certain conditions, though, whose presence makes for unhappiness in almost everyone, and if you change these conditions your increased happiness is not subject to the adaption principle. They include:

* Noise. Especially variable and intermittent noise. Though we tend to adapt to the constant flow of traffic or Muzak, or consistent background noise, loud variable and intermittent noise drives most of us crazy. If you live or work in a place where you're victimized by it, move to a different environment and you will be happier, not just initially but forever. 

* Commuting. No one really likes it; some people handle it better than others. Especially if your commute is driving in heavy traffic, it more than likely has a negative impact on your day-to-day happiness. Not only that, it take minutes, and many times hours, out of your day, hours that can be used to do things, and be with people, you really enjoy. Reduce, or better yet eliminate, your commute, and you'll be happier.

* Control. Feeling out of control? Then you're probably also feeling unhappy. Increase your control over yourself and/or certain elements of your life, and you'll be happier. And it's not just the big elements that count. While I won't go into in any depth here, a research study found that allowing nursing home patients to care for, and choose when to water, plants made them happier than just putting plants in their rooms and having the staff take care of and water them. To find out more see Ellen Langer's groundbreaking book, Mindfulness. 

* Body image shame. Feel ashamed of your body? Do something about it. If you make permanent changes to how you view your body -- through exercise, dietary habits, even plastic surgery -- you will increase your long term happiness. 

* Relationships. Increase both the strength and number of your relationships, and you will be happier. Seligman and other researchers all attest that this is the most important of all the conditions. People make people happy. Who'd' have thunk it? This is such an important condition of happiness that soon I'll devote an entire post to it. We all have our own ways of building relationships and making new relationships -- ways that have worked well for us in the past. So, for now, consciously undertake some of these tried an true methods. You know, pull a Nike and just do it!

Ah, but we still have the voluntary activities component to explain. Well, really, not much explanation is needed. You increase your happiness when you do things you love to do. One distinction is important, however -- the distinction between pleasures and gratifications.

Pleasures have both sensory and emotional components. They include things like food, sex, and cool breezes. The "problem" with pleasures is that you soon reach a saturation point. So, in order for them to continue to bring you pleasure, you must schedule enough time between pleasures that they maintain their potency. The point is to enjoy pleasures when you can, but don't overburden them and expect them to be your only happiness-inducing activities.  

Gratifications are activities that help you get into a flow experience. Gratifications include activities like meditation, exercise, playing music, etc. that fully engage you by calling upon you to use and develop your strengths and potentials. They also assist you in both defining and growing your self. Gratifications are not subject to saturation.  Choose to do those activities that produce gratification, and you'll be much happier than if you merely fill your life with pleasures. In other words, happiness comes through growth.

So, there it is, a fairly wordy explanation of Seligman's simple formula H = S + C + V. Forget the S component for now. Focus upon the C's you can control and that aren't subject to the adaption principle and undertake activities that provide you true gratification. Do so, and happy may soon be your middle name!

The Geography of Happiness

Does it matter where you live? Are people in certain states happier than people in other states? It seems so, at least according to research undertaken by Janson Rentfrow and his colleagues at Cambridge University in England. 

So, which state do you think is the happiest? Surprise -- Utah! Maybe that magic underwear that all those Mormons wear not only helps them get into heaven but makes them happier, too! The citizens of Utah averaged 69.2 points on the 100 point happiness scale, beating Hawaii (68.2) by a full point. Now, happiness in Hawaii, that makes sense. But number three is another surprise, at least to my way of thinking -- Wyoming! Yee hah! In fact, six of the top ten states are Western states. 

The unhappiest state? West Virginia, followed closely by Kentucky. I guess having a meth lab in your double-wide doesn't necessarily make you happy. Fewer teeth and increased paranoia, yes. More happiness, no.

Why are the denizens of the Western states so joyful and jolly? The researchers identified three factors that most of the happiest states share:

* Greater wealth

* Higher levels of education

* More tolerance

1) Greater wealth. Time and time again happiness researchers have been quick to point out that wealthier people aren't necessarily happier people, so what gives? Well, it's not the wealth itself that creates happiness but what the wealth can accomplish. Wealthier states can afford better infrastructure. Things like better roads, more parks, higher levels of social service and superior community enhancements. Furthermore, on an individual level wealthier people get better health care and are on the whole healthier, and thus happier, than their poorer, sicker counterparts. 

2) Higher levels of education. One of my favorite definitions of education comes from Ralph Tyler who said, "You can tell you're being educated if your options are increasing." Better educated people have more options when it comes to life choices. They can be more true to their individual likes, dislikes and preferences. They know themselves and their world better, and so can make more fulfilling choices. Finally, like wealthier people, better educated folks are healthier because they take better care of themselves and get better health care. 

3) More tolerance. Most of the happiest states are tolerant states. Citizens feel freer to express themselves there. Other than Utah, and perhaps Wyoming, all of the top ten happiest states have a greater percentage of bohemians than your average, less happy state. Happier states, on the whole, welcome artists, gays, and foreign born individuals, and support, or at least tolerate, their out-of-the-ordinary behaviors and lifestyles. 

Finally, one important factor that happy states tested particularly low on  -- neuroticism. Highest on the neuroticism scale? You guessed it, West Virginia & Kentucky! Followed closely by Mississippi. Hmmm, do we see a pattern here? High tolerance, low neuroticism. Low tolerance, high neuroticism. Sure makes both logical and intuitive sense.

So, should we all pack up the Volvo and move to Utah? Not so fast. While geography may have some influence upon your overall level of happiness,especially if you're of a bohemian bent, we can also individually apply the lessons learned form this research.

Make enough money to follow your dreams and get good health care. Pursue education, both formally and informally, and take advantage of your increasing options. Tolerate, or better yet, support, those who believe, act, and live differently than you do, as long as they aren't infringing upon your rights. And, oh yeah, take a pass on any neurotic tendencies you might have.

The bottom line is that you can be happy anywhere. Wealth, education, and tolerance might just increase your odds some. And living around others who also exhibit these three qualities might even up your odds a bit more. But moving to Utah, let's not get drastic!

Psychological Wealth

Ed Deiner calls happiness "psychological wealth." In his book Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, Deiner identifies five universal happiness factors, or elements for creating psychological wealth. While none of them are unique or surprising, they are indeed important aspects of life that it behooves us to pay attention to on a daily basis. Deiner's five part plan suggests that you:

1) Take care of your physical and mental health

2) Invest in relationships

3) Be engaged in the world

4) Adjust your attitude

5) Embrace spirituality

The beauty of his approach lies in its balance and simplicity. By focusing upon your body, mind, friends, community, and Spirit, you've basically covered all your bases. 

1) Take care of your physical and mental health. If you're not eating properly, exercising both your body and your brain, and  engaging in activities you love, you're not going to be as happy as you can be. Anything less than optimal health will create a physical and emotional drag that will keep you down. The best ways to insure physical and mental health are to do healthy activities with people you like and enjoy. Don't bust your ass trying to doa regimen that you hate. Even if it works in the short term, you won't stick with it in the long term, as most dieters can attest. So, find foods to eat that are good for you and that you like. Find exercise that is both healthy and fun. And watch your happiness level soar.

2) Invest in relationships. As the old saying goes, friends can get you through times of no money better than money can get you through times of no friends. "Invest" doesn't mean attempt to buy some friends. What it does mean is pour your energy and attention into others. Find out what they enjoy, what excites them, what makes their hearts sings and do whatever you can to facilitate those experiences for them. And, perhaps most important of all, show them appreciation. Of course, you want to comport yourself in this way towards family and friends, but try it also in relation to acquaintances, service providers, and total strangers! When the breadth and depth of your relationships increase, so will your happiness.

3) Be engaged in the world. Sure, sometimes the world seems pretty screwed up. And your personal influence seems miniscule at best. Be engaged in the world anyway. Even if your actions don't produce the results that you desire, the mere process of engagement will energize you and increase your happiness. So, be involved in civic activity, enjoy nature, support community initiatives, etc., and, lo and behold, you will find that not only does the mere act of engagement make you happy, the world also gives back to you!

4) Adjust your attitude. It's easy to get discouraged, angry, fearful or depressed. Luckily, it's also easy to adjust your attitude. It all has to do with focus. In any situation, you can choose to focus on what's lousy about it or what's great about it. And what you focus on will indeed create your attitude. Be the Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple of positivity, and you can find the lotus in any mucky pond, the pony in any shit-filled barn. Aside from focus, the other key to ratcheting up your attitude is never to blame others. Your attitude is 100% your response-ability. 

5) Embrace spirituality. If you really, really want to be happy, you've got to find something bigger than your puny little ego to either relate to or identify with. Call it God, Buddha Mind, Brahman, Allah, Spirit, or The Big Enchilada. Names don't matter, experience does. By embracing a higher, transcendent perspective on life, you won't let the little things bug you so much. You'll take the long view, the holistic view, the compassionate view of life and begin to experience your essential unity with all that is. It may sound a bit hazy and mystical, but if we can trust the testimony of sages, saints, and teachers of all times and faiths, embracing Spirit leads to ultimate happiness.  

The key words are balance and harmony. Harmonize body, mind, relationships, world, and Spirit, and the result on a subjective level is happiness or psychological wealth. You, yes you, can be the Warren Buffet, the Bill Gates of happiness! Psychological wealth abounds! And it's all up to you. Help yourself!

 

Four Simple Things

Most happiness researchers come from either psychological, philosophical, or sociological points of view. Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of The Happiness Myth, is different in that she approaches happiness from the perspective of history. She looks at what ancient philosophers and past cultures thought and taught about happiness. What she has found is that there are four common doctrines in all happiness theory. Here they are:

1) Know yourself. Happiness is not a one-size-fits-all phenomena. The specific actions, interactions and activities that make you happy may leave me cold. The better you know yourself, the easier it is to be happy. That means not automatically following the crowd, not doing something just because your friends or family think you should, but doing what really makes your own, little, pea-picking heart sing! (Extra bonus points if you know who popularized the phrase "pea-picking heart"). It is your uniqueness that elicits your greatest happiness. To experience Max Hap, you must know what your individual preferences, priorities, and predilections are.

2) Control your desires. Oh, damn, now happiness is starting to sound like hard work! Not really. Just don't mistake over-indulgence for happiness. Don't let every friggin' desire that shows up on the radar screen of your mind lead you around by the nose, or other bodily organ. 

You don't have to wear a loin cloth, live in a cave, and eat stems and seeds to control your desires. You just need some priorities. Choose which desires to fulfill and which ones to take a pass on. Even indulgence is OK, as long as you consciously decide what, when and where to indulge, and don't let your fulfillment of certain desires screw up the rest of your life.

3) Take what's yours. We are all given certain strengths, qualities, and genetic endowments. Whatever your positive characteristics and advantages are, take optimal advantage of them. Take all gift horses that come your way, even without a full dental exam. Play the cards you're dealt, the roles that nature or fate assigns you, and make the best of the life you've been given. Happiness isn't always about getting what you want; sometimes it's about wanting what you get.

4) Remember death. Yeah, now there's a cheery thought! It may not seem like it at first blush, but when it comes to happiness, death is one of your most trusted advisers. Remember death each day, and you're much less likely to waste the new 24 hours you've been given. And the fact that you don't know exactly how much time you have before the old Grim Reaper glides up and taps you on the shoulder, only means that you better make the best of this day, this hour, this moment, right here, right now. There's no such thing as future happiness. Jennifer Michael Hecht's rule of thumb is: Don't live each day like it's your last, live each day as you wish you'd lived yesterday. That, too is learning from history, personal history.

Four things. You can remember, and even do, four things. No sweat. Know yourself, control your desires, take what's yours, and remember death. Do those four and most of the usual barriers to happiness are removed. What's left? You, happy. And ... your beautiful, million watt smile!

Dealing With Unhappy People

A friend of mine, after reading one of the Happiness Archive posts the other day, sent me this request:

"My personal challenge is to be with those who aren't able to make the choice to be happy. Can you blog about this?"

Sure, I can blog about damn near anything! It's up to you to decide whether what I write is useful or not... ;>) I do, however, welcome and and all questions.

First point: It's almost impossible for us to really know whether a person is "able" to make the choice to be happy or not. Ability is largely invisible. What we do know is that some people, a whole lot of people, seem unhappy and seem unwillingly to make choices that would help them be happier. Being around them can be a real pain in the ass (if we let it), so what can we do?

1) Be happy anyway. Whatever you do, don't let your mood sink to their dismal level. You do not have to let unhappy people "make" you unhappy, too. I don't mean flaunt your happiness in their faces, especially if their unhappiness has been precipitated by an unfortunate event. You can, however, maintain your happiness and be empathetic at the same time. Just don't fall into the "misery loves company" trap, that so many unhappy people, unwittingly, or not, set. Being happy anyway is the first, and most powerful, choice you can make.

2) Use humor. Humor has the ability to cut through some of the crap in life that we all take way, way too seriously at times. It helps us to regain perspective. If you can get a person to laugh, you have at least kindled a spark of happiness within them. Granted, some people seem to have no sense of humor, or, at the very least, they have a sense of humor that is extremely different from yours. With those folks, choose an alternative approach. 

3) Ask them what's bothering them. Too often we fall into the trap of putting up with someone's bad moods and pretending that nothing's wrong. Or as Werner Erhard, the founder of the est training used to say, "I know what friendship is to you assholes -- I won't call you on your shit, if you don't call me on mine!" OK, you don't have to be quite so in-your-face, but you can at least ask people "What's wrong?" or "Is anything bothering you?" If they won't talk about it, or continue to pretend that nothing's wrong, while maintaining their unhappy demeanor, you may want to ask yourself whether now is a good time to be around them at all.

4) Pretend as if. Here's the exact opposite of strategy number three -- someone's in a bad mood, you pretend as if you don't even notice. You carry on as if they were in a good mood and treat them accordingly. Usually, one of two things happens. Either they begin to adopt a better mood, or they get really pissed off.  Either change on their part, though, is an improvement on pervasive, unspoken unhappiness. 

5) Offer help. Somebody's unhappy, just cut to the chase and offer help. "You seem unhappy, their Bucko, what can I do to help?" Lots of times you'll get the brush off at first. "Nothing," or "I'm fine" are both typical responses. Then you've got a choice. One you can wait and see if they step up to the plate and actually move their mood upwards along the happiness continuum. Or two, you can not take "fine" for an answer, and continue to press them on what's wrong. Or three, you can do something helpful for them anyways, even something small and merely symbolic, like holding the door or carrying a package, to show that you're there and that you care. One little act of kindness can sometimes be enough to move their mood in a positive direction, or, at least, get them to open up and talk about it.

6) Walk. Sometimes when people are in a perpetually crappy mood, its just time for you to walk away -- maybe temporarily, maybe permanently. Management guru Tom Peters talks about a company that made a policy that they would not work with unhappy people. It didn't matter whether the unhappy people were employees, suppliers or customers, if they were perpetually unhappy they just fired them and moved on. You, too, have the power to "fire" anyone in your life. You may want to give them some warning(s), but sometimes there are people who are literally too toxic or too unpleasant for us to handle, and with them the best solution is "sayonara."

Bottom line is that unhappy people don't have to make us unhappy or disempower us. It is up to each of us to decide, with each individual, in each specific situation, how much time and energy we want to invest in helping them choose happiness. We also need to realize that we are neither responsible for their choices nor their moods. Maintaining your own happiness is, in reality, the best thing you can do for others, too. That should always be your primary focus.

Is Happiness a Choice?

Many books, including A Course in Miracles (ACIM), claim that happiness is "merely" a choice. According to this thread of happiness theory, it's always up to us -- we can choose to be happy or we can choose to be unhappy. And we do so, each and every minute, of each and every day.

Like most absolutist's claims there is at least some truth in the happiness-as-choice position. The truth is that in every moment of life we can choose our mental focus. We can choose to focus on the beautiful, wonderful or exciting things in our world, in our lives, in ourselves, or we can choose to focus on the negative, depressing, or just plain stupid things. We can undertake the gratitude exercises that I mentioned earlier, we can "always look on the bright side of life" as they sang in the Monty Python movie The Life of Brian, and we can use our minds in all sorts of creative ways to induce positive emotions. 

And yet, we are more than just minds, we are bodies, too. That's where things like chemicals, hormones, heredity and genetics come in. Some people are just more biologically inclined to have a sunny disposition than other people. Some people, as University of Virginia professor and happiness researcher, Jonathan Haidt puts it, "won the cortical lottery." And all of us seem to have our own specific "happiness set point" to which we regularly return no matter what happens in our lives. Granted, as I mentioned in an earlier post, our happiness set point is just one element that contributes to our overall happiness, but it is an important and powerful element. 

Still, the majority of factors affecting our overall happiness are within our sphere of influence or field of choice. All these things fall into one of two categories -- actions or attitudes, in other words, how we use our bodies or how we use our minds. Short of someone physically overpowering you, you can go where you want to go, do what you want to do. And that freedom of mobility can have an enormous and direct effect upon your happiness.

Attitudes, too, always contain an element of choice. Even if you awaken in a deep, blue, hormonal funk, you can use your power of focus to upgrade your mood and feel better about yourself and your life. As Rational-Emotive Therapy so clearly points out, our thoughts have a direct effect upon our emotions.

So, is happiness a choice? Yes and no. You can choose to undertake behaviors that will increase your overall level of happiness, but that doesn't mean that you can completely "choose" to overcome all genetic, biological and chemical components of happiness. Still, the playing field is quite large, and you'd be foolish to ignore or abdicate your power of choice.

As anthropologist and author, Carlos Castaneda says, "We can either make ourselves miserable or we can make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Being strong and being happy is definitely within your sphere of influence, even if it isn't completely under your control. May you always choose wisely.

The Future of Happiness

Daniel Gilbert is a really smart guy. He's got a PhD, he's a psychology professor at Harvard, and he's written a bunch of books. In his latest, Stumbling on Happiness, he basically tell us that we're not very good at figuring out what makes us happy. It's a book that's chocked full of research studies and witty phrases (so witty, in fact, that I was sick of them by page 8), all aimed at convincing us that when it comes to happiness most of us don't know the proverbial shit from the Shinola!

You see, Gilbert is of the school that believes that happiness is based on the decisions we make about our future. The technical term is "prospection," i.e., the art of looking forward in time or considering the future. It is Gilbert's contention that the best way to be happy is to make good decisions for out "future self.," to help it be happy. The problem he says is that really seeing what will make us happy in the future is not so easy. In Gilbert's eyes both our prognostication and decision-making abilities are considerably flawed.

After spending the lion's share of the book making his case for how really piss-poor most of us are at choosing people, activities and places that will make us happy, Gilbert comes to the conclusion that the best way to know if something will make us happy is to ask someone who is already doing it. While there may be some usefulness in this approach, it's overall utility seems severely limited due to the individualistic, not to mention, idiosyncratic, nature of human preferences. 

Example: Let's say, I'm thinking of moving to New York City, NY. You already live there and you love it. You really believe that "it's the city so nice, they named it twice." I move there, and it's crowded, dirty, noisy, expensive, and a host of other things that I abhor.  What good has your voice of experience done me?  

What I'm saying is, go ahead and ask other people's opinions, just don't take them as gospel. What I'm also saying is that I can't believe this guy wrote a whole book, 90% of which is telling us we don't have a clue when it comes to happiness, only to tell us in the last few pages that the best way to be happy is to ask the opinions of other clueless people who are very different from us but who just happen to be doing what we're considering doing. ("Hey, Frank, I was thinking about hitting on your wife. How is she in the sack by the way?").

OK, perhaps I'm being too hard on the good Dr. Gilbert. In interviews since his books came out, he has also given us what he calls his Four Rules of Happiness. Here they are:

1) Bingeing is bad, except when it isn't. You'll get more happiness from eating two whole cookies on Saturday than from eating one-quarter of a cookie each day for a week. In other words, something has to pass a certain "pleasure threshold" in order to be happiness-inducing. Of course bingeing all the time won't bring happiness, either, but try a few strategic binges, and you'll be much happier than if you live a life of moderation, moderation, moderation....

2) Happiness often comes from what you don't know. Strangely enough, many times we are happier if we receive a reward for no apparent reason than if we receive a reward that is tied to a specific reason. In some of the psychological literature on rewards and motivation, the term used is "jackpot." We are happier receiving a jackpot out of the blue than earning a performance-based bonus. Huh? Test this theory yourself by practicing "random acts of kindness," and see what level of happiness ensues in your test subjects.

3) Keeping your options open won't necessarily make you happier. The worst decision you can make is usually indecision. Just go ahead and choose one person, place, activity, or thing, or another. And live with it. You'll most likely be happier than you would be stuck in limbo land.

4) The things you fear are not as bad as you think. Even when people suffer catastrophes, their pre-catastrophic level of happiness usually returns. Alot of it has to do with your "happiness set point," which I discussed in a previous post. The problem with fear and catastrophic expectations is that they keep us from taking risks, from doing things that might actually bring added happiness into our lives, like moving to a different area, training for a new career, or asking out that person who really catches both your eye and your heart. The message here is loud and clear: Even if you screw up, you'll recover -- go for it! 

So, binge every now and again, stay open to unexpected happiness, make some friggin' decisions already, and don't be paralyzed by fear. The Four Rules, Dr. Gilbert provides us actually contain some pretty damn good life advice! He didn't need a whole book to tell them to us, but what the hey. Oh, and if nothing else works, and you still don't know what decision to make, use your final lifeline -- phone a  friend.