Happiness As By-Product

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness," opines novelist and essayist Aldous Huxley, "it is generally the by-product of other activities." In other words, chase happiness and it retreats from you; undertake certain other activities, though, and happiness will come unbidden in secret moments and in unexpected ways. Such is the major tenet of the Happiness As By-Product school of thought. Better to attract happiness than pursue it. Or as author  Ernie Zelinski says, "The desperate pursuit of happiness is one of the chief causes of unhappiness."

OK, but what "specific activities" will call forth happiness? Different activities for each of us. Or as Sly & The Family Stone so wisely sang, "different strokes for different folks."  Here, at least, are a few hints.

One, the activities that produce the most happiness are the activities you love. Duh! Sounds completely obvious, doesn't it? Why then do we continue to makes excuses for not doing them? Why do we guilt-trip ourselves when we do do them? Why don't we fill our lives day in and day out with activities that we love? Anyone? anyone?

The second type of activity that has good chance of producing happiness is helping others. OK, you may not love taking old Aunt Clara to the proctologist for the umpteenth time, but in helping her out, you might just receive a little unexpected buzz of happiness. The key is to undertake the activity with as little resentment and as much good cheer as possible. Give happiness a platform on which to build and you may be surprised by its fanciful creations!

The third happiness-inducing activity is something meaningful. What's meaningful? Again, that's up to you to decide. You are the meaning-maker of your own life. So, if you think saving the Yellow-Bellied Sap Sucker is meaningful, then involving yourself in things that help that little sucker survive will more than likely make you happy. One caveat, though, your meaning has to come from what you are for, not from what you are against. Being against something usually produce much more animosity and suffering than it does gladness or joy.

Finally, activities you just plain have to do can produce happiness. Huh? Though it may defy common sense, must-to's and have-to's can indeed be a source of happiness. The trick is in finding a cool, fun, energizing way to do them. When my daughters were young, they weren't exactly fond of cleaning their rooms. Yelling and threatening, the frustrated parent's strategy of choice, produced little happiness for any of us. But playing music they loved, dancing, making it into a game, even Dad pitching in, all made a usually contentious activity downright enjoyable. Your challenge is to tackle your duties in new and creative ways, and let happiness ensue.

What if the happiness you are looking for in your life is actually looking for you? What if paradox is happiness' operating principle? Chase it, it runs; go on about your life, and, don't worry, it will find you. This is an hypothesis that's easy to test. When it comes to happiness, forget about it!

Historical Happiness

Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of The Happiness Myth, has both an unusual name and an unusual take on happiness. She takes the long view on happiness, looking at it through the lens of history. Her "Happiness by Historical Perspective" approach makes her really good at spotting how contemporary ideas about happiness differ from more classical approaches. One of the things she's noticed is that our current culture has a decided bias in favor of two things -- longevity and productivity.

In terms of longevity most people assume living a long time will help make them happy. In other words they emphasize quantity over quality, sort of the Wal-Mart Syndrome applied to their entire life. As Hecht puts it, scientists study the negative impact of eating chocolate cake on life expectancy, but they never think to ask if the happiness you get from eating it is worth it. 

It's like the old joke. A man goes to his doctor for a check-up. The doc examines him and says, "You're in OK shape, but there are a few lifestyle changes I'd like you to make. Quit eating meat, quit drinking caffeine, quit drinking alcohol, and give up having sex." "If I do all that will I live to be a hundred?" the patient asks. "I can't guarantee that," says the doc, "but it'll sure as hell feel like it!"

The question we each have to ask ourselves is a re-edit of a classic one: Is it better to live 6o years like a lion or  82.3 years like a lamb?" OK, maybe it's not quite that cut and dry, but it behooves all of us to question the assumption that a longer life is a happier life. 

As for productivity, The Protestant Work Ethic was not alive and well in classical times. It was more like Mark Twain said, "Work is something a body has to do. Play is something a body wants to do." In many historical epochs, and in many cultures, the emphasis was decidedly on enjoyment or play, and people worked only as much as they had to in order to provide for their basic needs. And, no, kids, a Play Station is not a basic need! Henry David Thoreau, transcendentalist author and philosopher, devised a way of working for pay a mere six weeks out of each year, and then living footloose and fancy-free at Walden Pond the rest of the year. 

Interestingly, both longevity and productivity are now in the cultural forefront as health care and jobs are the twin bugaboos of today's economy. Did you know that over 80% of the money spent on the average person's  health care is spent in the final two years of their life? The ideal of longevity costs us all a friggin' fortune! And do the extra two years, many times spent sick and infirm, really make us happier?

As for jobs, if we all just worked less there'd be plenty of jobs to go around. Of course we'd have to quit buying all that useless crap from China, as well as all the other luxurious "necessities" that keep our over-bloated economy afloat. But the question is: Wouldn't we all be alot happier with more time to do what we love with the people we love than we are with 40+ hour work weeks, stress-related diseases, and a house full of plastic shit?

Ooops, looks like I got off on a rant there! The point is, the point that Jennifer Michael Hecht makes is, that perhaps our cultural over-emphasis on both longevity and productivity is producing less happiness, not more. As the Moody Blues said, it's "a question of balance," and a question we all need to ask ourselves in order to experience the most happiness in our lives.

Happiness Experiments

Let's take Robert Holden, author of Happiness Now, at his word for a moment. He says that more money, more things, more people, more places, and even more experiences will not make us happier. If he's right, what is there left to do?

Tune into the happiness that is already within you, Holden suggests. "Nothing real stands between you and your happiness," he tells us, "only illusion and your own confusion." Are there ways to dispel illusion and clear up  confusion? Indeed there are, and here are a few.

1) Accept yourself. Most of us spend an inordinate amount of time judging, condemning, defending and trying to fix ourselves. Stop it. I know, I know -- easier said than done. The point is that it's hard to be happy unless you unconditionally accept what is, and the first and foremost "what is" in your life is you. If you're waiting to become perfect in order to become happy, you'll be waiting a lifetime, and then some. Even a a slight move towards accepting yourself the way you are right now -- warts, pimples, bad habits & all -- will increase your overall experience of happiness.

2) Give up suffering. Somehow in our culture, we have been sold the idea that it's noble to suffer. No it isn't; it's just plain stupid. As Holden puts it, "There is no exchange rate between suffering and happiness." In other words being the long suffering mother, child, friend, or martyr ain't going to get you a ticket on the Happiness Express. It's just going to further inculcate your habit of suffering. True happiness is about self-acceptance, not self-sacrifice. 

3) Quit waiting. Anytime you think "I will be happy if... " or "I will be happy when..." you are foregoing true happiness. There are no prerequisites for happiness -- it demands nothing of you. You don't have to be perfect, get enlightened, become a millionaire, love everyone, or win the lottery. There are no hoops to jump through and nothing to be accomplished. As Holden puts it, "Happiness is never grasped, it is simply let loose." Quit waiting to let it loose, let her rip right now!

4) Calm down. All the time there is an underground river, a secret stream of happiness pulsing within us. Usually we're so involved in our thoughts and emotions, our memories and plans, that we don't even perceive this ever-present eddy of joy. Calm down, slow down, relax. Let go of both thoughts and emotions and see what lies beneath. What? Could that be happiness pulsating within? Who'd have thunk it?

5) Go out to go within. Pay attention to the world around you, to the here and now, whether that here and now be the bird's song, the eye brows of the person across from you, or the incessant hum of traffic. By using our senses to tune into what's going on right now, we also open a doorway to tuning into what's going on within us. Attention is transferable. The trick is staying focused on the present moment, both the external and internal present.

It's an experiment. Life that is. And filled with all kinds of mini-experiments, five of which I've recommended above. My hypothesis is that by doing any of these five actions you will begin to attune yourself to your intrinsic, internal happiness. Prove me right, or prove me wrong. Either way, you'll never know until you try.

Happiness Myths

Robert Holden is kind of different, at least as far as happiness theory is concerned. The author of Happiness Now, Holden is a strong proponent of the happiness begins within school of thought. Not just begins, but also resides there and ends there as well.  "Happiness is not in things," he say, "happiness is in you." He is especially adept as pointing out the mistaken notions we have regarding what we need in order to be happy. Here are three of our most prevalent errors.

1) More -- I need more to be happy. More money, more sex, more hair, more time, more love, more friends, more lawn ornaments in my yard -- you get the picture, more of anything. More is nothing but a morass according to Holden. You never need more of anything to be happy, and anytime you think you do all you're doing is putting your happiness on hold.

2) Next -- The next lover, spouse, job, new house, pair of shoes, etc. will make me happy. Next is just more in drag. Once the initial thrill of getting the next anything wears off, you're right back to your old level of happiness, or misery, as the case my be. All external things fall victim to The Adaption Principle. What this means is that you will soon begin to take the more or the next for granted, and it will no longer cause the little buzz of pleasure that it initially provided.

3) There -- Happiness is over there somewhere, and as soon as I get there, I'll be happy. "There" can be a new geographic location, a new relationship state (married, divorced, etc.), a new activity (college, retirement) or a new identity (doctor, saint, business owner, etc.). The problem with "there" is that happiness is always on the horizon, always kept at bay, because one "there" is inevitably replaced by another and another and another, until you're at the point where the only way you can be happy is to lose your life and be in heaven or reincarnated or something!

The truth, according to Holden is that happiness is always here, always now. "Happiness does not come and go," he points out, "what comes and goes is your attunement to happiness." In other words, if you can't be happy right here, right now, you ain't ever going to be truly happy. 

That changes the whole nature of the game. Instead of trying to get more, next, and there, we need to focus on the attunement process. No more moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic, we need to focus within rather than without. 

How do we attune? Stay tuned and find out, because that will the subject of the next post.

Ten Secrets to Finding Happiness

Everybody wants to be happy! Even the readers of U.S. News & World Report. So on July 22nd of this year, the magazine ran an article on Ten Secrets to Finding Happiness. While we've covered some of these before, it's always good to have a reminder or two as to what really are the ingredients of happiness. As you read these, do a Self Audit in which you ask your self which of the secrets you've been neglecting lately, and how you might increase your happiness by giving these elements just a bit more attention.

 Without further ado, a summary of the Ten Secrets along with a bit of commentary from yours truly:

 1) Spend money on experiences rather than things. It's simple: You feel more alive and energized by skiing, traveling, going to a play, than you do from the latest gizmo or gadget that Madison Avenue is hawking. Also, experiences have more of an incomparable quality, while someone will always have a bigger TV, fancier cell phone, or more chic purse than you. Better to have a life rich in experience and poor in stuff than the other way around.

 2) Set and pursue meaningful life goals. Wealth, fame and improved personal appearance are shallow, meaningless goals that do very little to produce long term happiness. On the other hand, goals that encompass personal growth, service to other, and intrinsic joy are the building blocks of the good life.

 3) Be open and receptive to the here and now. To do so, to nourish present-centered awareness, you must drop judgement and worry. Simply perceive and observe, what is happening in the present moment, and you will be amazed at the joy that is inherent in it. Happiness is never in the past or the future. Happiness is always, right here, right now.

 4) Build meaningful relationships. People with joyful lives surround themselves with joyful and supportive people. Happiness increases when you have people you can count on and when you experience a sense of belonging. 

 5) Recognize and capitalize on your strengths. You have both internal characteristics and external skills that help make you who you are. The mere expression of these characteristics and use of these skills will bring you joy, regardless of any outcomes you produce. The more you express your essential nature, your true self, the happier you will be!

 6) Count your blessings. The formula is straightforward and simple -- gratitude increases happiness. Stop, think, and literally count all the blessings in your life, all the people, places, ideas and things for which you are grateful. Take this gratitude inventory everyday. I like to do it while exercising; it helps make the time go faster and exercises my heart in two ways at once.

 7) Keep an optimism journal. Take a few minutes each day to write down positive interpretations of seemingly negative events. You know, practice the old glass is half full perspective, even when you don't have a friggin' glass! Also write about the positive changes that you are making or plan to make in your life.  Keep your spirits up by getting the words down.

 8) Ask others advice. Want to know what will make you happy, ask others what makes them happy. Did they like that new Thai restaurant? Was the cruise worth the money?  Sure, not everyone has the same emotional responses to things as you do, but friends, family, neighbors, and even film critics can sometimes clue you into how you'll respond to a given experience.

 9) Get out and sweat! You know it, I know it, all God's children know it -- exercise releases endorphins and other mood altering chemicals that make you feel so good you put James Brown to shame! It's the first step out of the old Lazy Boy Recliner that's the hardest. Just remember that research shows that "burning off 350 calories three times a week in sustained, sweat-inducing activity can reduce symptoms of depression about as effectively as antidepressants." Feeling, down? Get up, and move, move, move!

 10) Do small acts of kindness. Help someone else feel better, and you'll feel better, too. Happiness is way more contagious than H1N1 virus, and it's a beautiful kind of contagion. Even when you're not feeling happy, helping others can bring happiness to two -- them and you. As the bumper sticker says, "Practice random acts of kindness." What else you got to do?

 Ten secrets may seem like alot, but no doubt you're doing some of these things already. Focus on the ones you're not doing, and try them out, even if they seem like a bit of a stretch at first, and find out what happens. You are your own semi-scientific happiness experiment. Your life is your petrie dish. Plant the seeds of happiness and watch them grow!

Stoic Happiness

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded way back in the third century B.C. So, what do these old Greek dudes have to do with you and your happiness today? The Stoics offer us ancient wisdom for post-modern times. Their approach to happiness, not unlike some Eastern approaches, is strong on self-control and self-determination. Epictetus and the other Stoics would say your real happiness has nothing to do with your job, income level, home, friends, or even your health. 

Basically for the Stoics, happiness is derived from thee things:

1) Living in harmony with the Universe

2) Gratefully and gracefully accepting what life gives you

3) Not taking anything personally

Like the Taoists, the Stoics believe that living in harmony with the Universe has alot to do with following the ways of nature. Or, as it says in The Bible (and in that old Byrds song), "to everything there is a season." Expansion/contraction, gain/loss, success/failure -- these, and all other pairs of opposites, will continue to alternate throughout your life. The Stoics see this, understand this, and refuse to go on an emotional roller coaster ride because of it. Harmonize with the natural cycles of life, the say, and all will be copacetic!

Not only does it make no sense to push the river, say the Stoics, it is also stupid and self-destructive to piss and moan about life giving you a raw deal. Whatever you get, accept it, enjoy it and move on. Be open to what comes your way, and don't worry, good or bad, it too shall pass. 

Finally, the Stoics say, "Hey, dude, don't take it so friggin' personally!" The path to happiness leads directly from the personal to the impersonal. The sun shines on all equally, thus be like the sun.

This whole Stoic approach to happiness is what we might call a school of the Internal Way. External conditions mean nothing to the Stoics. Happiness is all about internal self-control and external harmony. As the most famous Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, puts it: "If, therefore, any man be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy because of himself alone." Larry Winget and Dr. Phil meet your predecessor, Epictetus!

The Stoic ideal is The Sage, the person who sees and accepts life for what it is and has thus transcended all negative emotions. Fear, hate, anger, sadness, and all other negative emotions are seen as barriers to happiness. Get your mind right, Luke, and those emotions will be a thing of the past and happiness will be your normal, everyday state. Then, no matter what fortune befalls you, you remain happy, happy, happy all the time. Or as Epictetus says, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy."

A tall order? Perhaps. But an intriguing proposition. Can you harmonize, can you accept, can you impersonalize enough to find happiness ever and always within? Only way to know -- try it!

People & Activities You Love

Hey, it's the weekend -- time for exercise! The exercise I have in mind, though, can be done without even moving your lazy butt off the sofa. So, let's set it up.

It makes sense that when you're around people that you love (or at least really like) or when  you're doing activities that you love or really like, you're going to be pretty damn happy. The key is in identifying those people and activities and spending more time, with them, or doing them. ;>)

So, take a blank sheet of paper and make a list of ten people you really love being with. Next to each name write down the date you were last with them. Some of them, like close family members, you may spend time with everyday. But, if you're like most of us, you don't spend much time with at least half the people on your list. It's simple: If you want to be happier, make spending time with these happiness-inducing people a priority in your life. 

Can't see them very often because they live in Timbuktu? That's where technology comes in. Skype them, text them, email them, send them videos on YouTube, call them, or even use the good ole USPS and send them a real card or letter. One way or another make sure you spend your life with happy people, as well as with the people whose presence makes you happy.

Exercise part deux: Make a list of ten activities that give you that old happiness, endorphin rush. And, of course, next to each activity, note the date you last partook. Two of the things on my list are tennis and swimming. I was swimming just yesterday, but I haven't played tennis for months. For me, more tennis would equal more happiness. You'll probably find a similar pattern. Jettison the passive stuff you do just out of habit like watch TV, read crappy novels, or surf the Internet, and replace them with things from your top ten list, and * voila * more happiness in your life!

It's not magic, or Herculean effort, it's just common sense. One way guaranteed to increase your happiness is to make happiness a priority. Hang out with your "happy people" do your "happy acts" and naturally, effortlessly more ecstatic moments and more happy days will be yours.