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Happiness is Not a Fish That You Can Catch
Tara Brach (Book: Radical Acceptance, Podcast: iTunes)
Rick Hansen (Books: Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Newsletter: Just One Thing)
Alan Watts (Book: The Wisdom of Insecurity)
What is happiness? Is it a feeling of satisfaction with everything in your life? A person cannot remain in a perpetual state of happiness, because the nature of reality is constant change, and our own nature is to constantly fight reality by either resisting or clinging to various things. The pursuit of some goal implies a dissatisfaction with the current state that motivates efforts to get from here to somewhere else. As you can see, a discussion of happiness dissolves into abstractions.
Rather than the singular pursuit of happiness, I think a richer life results from the pursuit of the complete range of human emotions through a diversity of experiences.
It makes more sense to think of people as having a baseline disposition. Research shows that each person has a particular baseline level of satisfaction, and while circumstances may make that person feel more positive or more negative in the short term, they will return to their baseline disposition in the long term.
However, there is good news. You can change your baseline disposition by taking advantage of neuroplasticity. Rick Hansen writes about how to overcome the brain’s default negativity bias (a.k.a. “paper tiger paranoia”) to have deeper and more frequent feelings of joy, gratitude, and love.
Tara Brach teaches us to radically accept our realities, including embracing our own negative emotional reactions to our own realities. At the core of her teaching is that we must fully love, accept, and care for ourselves before we can succeed in other relationships and endeavors. Stop beating yourself up — be more compassionate. YOU are your own best friend, and NOBODY ELSE is going to take care of your personal shit.
(A more humorous take on this theme is Nick Offerman’s Paddle Your Own Canoe.)
Alan Watts explains how our logical left brains structure and slice up the world into chunks so that society can function but leaving us feeling disconnected and alone. He explains how our unbounded right brains tap into a shared, universal experience of life that allow us to feel joyful and connected. Be here now; don’t live in the “I’ll be happy when…” mode.
