“If only we’d stop trying to be happy we’d have a pretty good time.” ~Edith Wharton
I have a question for you.
What would you be willing to sacrifice to be happy?
Would you be happy to let go of Netflix? Alcohol? Pizza?
Would you be willing to take up a monastic life?
Every single day of the year we’re being sold happiness. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the form of a pill or a book or a holiday, the underlying idea is the same: What we have to sell you will make you happy.
The problem with happiness is that no one really knows exactly what it is. It’s intangible, even a little mysterious, yet still we all want to be happy. But trying to be happy is like trying to get to sleep; the harder you try, the less likely it is to happen.
So four years ago, on New Years Eve, I made the pledge to myself to stop trying to be happy.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t miserable. I was just spending too much time thinking about whether or not I was happy—even though neither I, nor anyone I knew really, could give a clear answer about what this meant.
So instead of saying to myself, This year I’m going to be happy, I said, This year I’m going to try new things. I’m going to meet new people. I’m going to go to new places. I’m going to push myself out of my comfort zone.
And if I’m not happy, well, I’m not happy, but at least I’ve had some interesting experiences.
The result of this was the best (and probably happiest) year of my life, at least up to that point. And I realized something obvious in hindsight, but still profound: Happiness is something that comes a lot more easily when we stop thinking about it.
It’s more like a place you occupy than an object you obtain. Some days you’ll be there and some days you wont, but the more time you spend thinking about being happy, the less likely you are to spend time being so.
A large part of what less than happy people have is a problem with their patterns of attention.
In the same way the attention of an extrovert is naturally directed at social communication, the attention of an entrepreneur seeks out business opportunities, and an artist looks for creative expression, an unhappy person tends to look directly at happiness.
This post will explore some practices that can help you to stop focusing so hard on the idea of happiness and instead embrace the experiences and thoughts that will actually make you happy.
1. Take the word “happy” out of your vocabulary.
We all know words are used to communicate ideas. Unfortunately, sometimes a word can get overused and it becomes confusing, stifling, or even dangerous.
Here are some other words you should start to use in conversations with yourself and others about how you feel. Don’t be fooled into believing you need to experience all of them; you don’t.
If you find yourself asking, Am I happy? Replace the question with: Do I have [insert word] in my life?
- Contentment
- Enjoyment
- Laughter
- Well-being
- Peace of mind
- Cheerfulness
- Playfulness
- Hopefulness
- Blessedness
2. Practice living in the present.
Letting go of past regrets and future anxieties is not easy, but it’s the fastest way to live a full and enjoyable life. Think about enjoying each moment for its own unique role in the ongoing narrative of your life.
If you want a short mantra to keep in mind: be here now.
3. Decide what you really want to do.
A lot of people that are searching for happiness will end up with “shiny object syndrome.” This is what happens when they bounce from goal to goal because they’re looking for something (or someone) to take away all their suffering.
Knowing yourself and
what you truly want can help you develop purpose and focus—so much so that you don’t even have time to waste pondering happiness. You may even realize that happiness is not what you really want, that you’re willing to put up with being unhappy some of the time if it means you will have a sense of achievement.
4. Let go of unrealistic expectations about how happy you’re supposed to be.
For most of human history people lived relatively rough lives. The idea that you’re supposed to be happy all of the time is pretty new.
Though you should strive to live the fullest life you can, it’s actually more normal and perfectly okay to live an average life interspersed with brief periods of joy.
5. Take small daily steps.
If you think you know what you want and you’re determined that it will make you happy, at least decide on small daily steps that you can take to get there.
Setting unrealistically goals that you never get to finish is far less fulfilling than setting small goals that you can finish and appreciate—and ones that let you know you’re on the right track.
6. Make serving others a regular habit.
One key habit of unhappy people that we often don’t talk about is that they are inherently self-centered.
This doesn’t mean that they are bad people by any means. It just means their minds spend a disproportionate amount of time focused on the self.
Serving others is one way to break this pattern of attention from “How am I feeling?” to “How are
you feeling?” There are
a lot of studies that show that giving to others is more rewarding than receiving.
7. Separate your happiness from your achievements.
We all need to learn to separate our happiness from our achievements. It’s okay to feel content with our lives simply because we have an inherent sense of self-worth.
Reaching our goals can obviously bolster this feeling and give us a deep sense of accomplishment, but the absence of achievement should not mean the absence of happiness.
8. Don’t force yourself to be positive all the time.
There’s a lot of advice in the self-help community and spiritual circles about
being positive. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the best advice. It’s better to be positive when you are actually feeling positive than it is to be positive when you’re feeling negative.
9. Remove things that prevent happiness.
This is actually a lot more important than finding things to make you happy.
Do you dislike your job?
Are you eating a lot of unhealthy food?
These things all need to go before you start to seek happiness; otherwise, they can hold you back and you may never be satisfied.
10. Be okay with okay.
When people ask you, “How’s work? How’s the new city? How’s your relationship going?” Don’t you feel compelled to say “really good!” even when it’s not?
We’re so conditioned to feel like we need to have the best of everything that “okay” just isn’t good enough for most of us.
Learning to be okay with okay is a much better strategy toward allowing things to become great than is anxiously wishing that they already were.
