The Lowdown on Being Happy
Many of us live with the delusion that life should be fair and mostly pleasant. It is, at certain moments. Moments such as watching your child being born. Holding him or her for the first time. The feeling when your fiancé says, “I do.” The thrill of riding a great roller coaster or making your first paycheck. All of that is fabulous; there’s no doubt.
But what comes from being around for a while is that you start to realize that moments like these don’t happen as often as we would like. They come and go quickly, and although there is much in our lives that does bring continued joy, life is tricky and requires a certain savvy to maintain a positive attitude.
Some lucky people just seem to have almost a naïve bliss they can maintain, but for most of us, it is challenging at best to keep up a spunky attitude in the face of heavy traffic commutes, bills, rising crime and never enough time for anything. In fact, true, sustainable, ongoing contentment is not a natural part of the human repertoire. Human beings can be quite dismal creatures. This fact alone accounts for the high use of drugs in the world, (legal and illegal,) as well as the number of suicides, murders, self-help books, obesity, illnesses and other dismal human conditions.
Why is true, ongoing joy so difficult for us? Because human beings aren’t physiologically designed that way. Our brains, an intricate balance of chemicals and electrical impulses, flourish on repetition. We know that. Add to that the fact that we are placed into an imperfect world with a fair amount of general human suffering, and true, sustained bliss seems more like something reserved for storybooks.
When something negative happens to us, we naturally start to focus on that. Why did it happen? How did things go wrong? How can we prevent it? Why is life so unfair? Our brains start running this narrative over and over, shortening the phrases. So we end up with “why, wrong, unfair, why, wrong, unfair ….” And before too long, we are not only bummed out, but we begin to expect the same results. A negative pattern embeds in our minds and our actions just naturally follow, creating more of the same.
We do live in an imperfect world. It’s going to rain on our wedding days, we are going to step in dog poop on our way to a first date, and the car is going to break down right before we arrive at our most important job interview. Is there a solution, short of moving to Nepal and becoming a devout Buddhist?
There are a few actions we can put into motion that will actually make a difference. To start, it helps to admit to ourselves that life isn’t fair, that bad things will happen, but that it’s not what happens to us that matters. It’s how we choose to perceive what happened and if we are still able to feel fortunate.
There’s a difference between always expecting the worse and instead accepting the imperfect condition of being human without taking it as a personal affront. Life is tough. That’s what separates out the men from the boys and the women from the girls. It’s the ability to say, “Hey, this poses quite a challenge. How am I going to overcome and conquer this, and most important, what can I learn from it?”
Just as important as seeing the bad times as an opportunity to learn, when things actually do go right…like when you and your partner both have those surprising, in sync, tender moments, when you nail that job you’ve been going after for months now, or when that child of yours wraps those little arms around your neck and surprises you with a spontaneous, “I love you so much!”…stop and really, deeply appreciate those moments. Don’t let them slip by without really taking notice and allowing yourself to feel truly lucky for getting to experience them. Appreciating things more has a way of making our overall lives seem more enjoyable, without an increase in the quantity of these moments. And strangely enough, the more appreciation we have for the really amazing moments, the more they actually materialize.
Another thing we can do is put an end to the “grass is always greener” syndrome. Envy does nothing for us. When we look at our football stars, actors or celebrities and envy them for their Mercedes, yachts in Monte Carlo, their trips around the world, nannies, cash, and fame, we are overlooking a lot. All that comes with a price. Celebrity comes with lack of privacy.
Mansions come with a huge, looming mortgage payment. Expensive cars bring worry about theft and damage. Wealth means you are more of a target for your children being kidnapped, your name being slandered and many other negatives, like constantly having to wonder if your friends like you for just you, or for your money or fame.
Understanding that happiness is ours to have and hold despite what lot in life we’ve drawn opens us up to the real possibility of achieving true sustained contentment. In turn, we can teach our children this from early on and give them an incredibly valuable gift. Teach them to be happy with what they have instead of always searching for something bigger, shinier and more expensive.
Have you ever watched your child on Christmas morning? You got them exactly what they’ve been pestering you for all year long. They unwrap it in a frenzy, then immediately toss it aside and go on to the next gift. You sit there in disbelief with your mouth hung open. But really, what’d you expect? We as adults do the same thing. The second we achieve something like falling in love, we are onto the next milestone. When are we getting married? Then we marry, and it’s “When will we have children?” And then it’s “when will we have the better job, the better car, the better body, the bigger house…” until we are picking out our caskets and wondering why we’ve been so miserable our whole lives.
Accept the fact that life is a lot of hard work with a handful of really amazing, awesome moments. How we go about achieving them also matters. Buying the latest sports car with payments that are going to kill our monthly budget, having an affair with the hot neighbor, climbing over other people to get that big promotion, all that stuff will not help us feel or ultimately be any happier. It’s all a temporary fix that comes with a price that leaves us feeling empty and more stressed rather than bringing us a true sense of lasting joy.
Want to be happy? Change your mindset. Often this is impossible for us without a major life tragedy, like almost dying from a car accident or a disease. Talk to a couple of people who have been there and this is what they’ll tell you. They now realize, every single day, what an absolute gift it is just to be alive. Think about that for a second. Our entire lifetime is barely a flash of light in this vast Universe of ours, which, of course, is only one of a million. Our lives are so, so little. The fact that we are even conscious of our existence is an absolute miracle. Understanding this, we can understand what an absolute gift it is that we even get to exist at all.
Focus on the amazing moments and you’ll find that your brain will become more content in general. That’s because your brain’s cells expand and grow through stimuli, or on what you choose to focus. Conversely, if your thoughts are often negative, it will breed more and more negativity, letting the happiness-producing cells slowly shrink and eventually die, while the misery-producing cells flourish and grow. We do have conscious control over our general mental health just by making a choice about on what we choose to focus. Learn to really, deeply appreciate the fantastical moments. Dwell on the gratitude. Hope that they will happen to you again, but realize that if they don’t, that’s okay.
We are all pretty much dealt the same hand upon birth, although we like to think it’s not that way. But truly, we are. Everyone that is born relatively healthy into a position where their basic needs will be provided is born with the same potential to be happy. Get over the thought that wealth, health, and good fortune are the creators of happiness. They aren’t. We are the creators of happiness. In fact, some of the poorest and most physically challenged people are also the happiest. Conversely, some of the richest, most privileged, healthiest people are the most miserable.
Happiness is not related to what happens or doesn’t happen, in your life. But it is directly related to how you perceive those happenings and how you allow them to affect you. If you make the conscious effort, take the time to appreciate all of the great moments that come along and refuse to dwell on the things that don’t turn out to your liking, you are well on your way. Realize that every single day, every passing hour is a gift, not a given, and you will be surprised at how happy your life will become and continue to be.
Life and its unpredictable happenings don’t make happy humans. Human thinking determines this, and fortunately we all do have control over how we think. That’s really all we need to know to achieve a true sort of happiness that will carry us through this wild, unpredictable dance we call life.
Copyright 2015 by Elisa Fortise Christensen
