For some lucky few, happiness just comes naturally. But if you’re like me, depression is always right around the corner, waiting to drag you down into its black abyss the moment you let your guard down. I’ve been a natural pessimist most of my life. I’ve always tended to look at the dark side, to what could go wrong and ask, “What’s the point?” but could never seem to find a satisfying answer.
Everyone’s got an opinion on what makes a happy life. We’re often advised to find what makes us happy and then just do more of it.
Maybe it’s exercising, having better relationships, satisfying work, being true to yourself or practicing mindfulness. But all of these center on the doing part of the equation. The problem is that if we can’t do these things, then we can’t be happy.
An intimate relationship may be the pinnacle of our joy one day, but when the relationship ends, so does our happiness. A job we were once passionate about now feels like a jail sentence. The inconsistency is unsettling.
As I enter my mid-thirties, I’ve realized that happiness is a way of being rather than a destination we arrive at. While going for a walk or breathing deeply makes us feel better momentarily, ultimately, being happy is not so much about what we’re doing, but rather the how we do it. When we get too attached to the action part, we’re left disappointed when our actions don’t reap consistent good feelings.
Two people with the exact same job can create totally different experiences. One can be completely miserable while the other is joyful.
You can go on an amazing vacation, but be so worried and not present that you can’t even enjoy it. Meanwhile, when we’re truly happy, it takes so much less for us to feel content. We can simply enjoy a walk around the neighborhood with our dog and have inner peace.
When we get too caught up in what we’re doing, we forget that how we do it is where we find true fulfillment. Ask yourself – ‘How are you choosing to show up each day, in each moment?’
We’re often given mindfulness as a solution, that it’s the key to happiness. But I think this is backward. Mindfulness doesn’t make us happy, but rather, when we are happy, we choose to be mindful. We feel safe enough to slow down. We’re not trying to rush to some imagined future experience, because we’ve let go of the flawed belief that our happiness exists in some future reality.
Trying to practice mindfulness without a strong intention and understanding of why you’re practicing it is nearly impossible.
How to be happy is not the problem. The bigger question we need to answer for ourselves is WHY should I be happy?
“With a big enough WHY you can overcome any HOW.”
– James Clear
Finding Your Why
We think we want to be happy simply, ‘because I want to feel good.’ But you have to dig deeper and ask yourself do I really want to feel good?
If we truly wanted to feel good , then why are we so addicted to our negative emotions, drama, and constant complaining? Why do we beat ourselves up internally - criticizing and berating ourselves constantly, when this only makes us feel miserable? We wouldn’t do this if we truly cared about feeling good. We unconsciously believe there is a good purpose to our emotional pain.
I think this stems from the belief that we must suffer in the moment to create a happy future one day. We believe the more we suffer, the more sweat and tears we will pour into striving for a better tomorrow. We’re afraid to let ourselves feel joy. But the sad reality is once we’ve finally achieved our goal, we’re only content for a minute, and then we’ve found something else to complain about . Our goalposts keep moving.
There are lots of reasons why we unconsciously postpone joy:
-We fear contentment - believing that happiness will make us complacent, lazy, entitled, and unmotivated to achieve the outcomes we believe we need to be happy one day.
-We don’t want to be disappointed. Believing if we feel good about our lives then something bad will happen to bring us down.
-We don’t believe we deserve it. We feel guilty for being happy. We ask, ‘Who are we to feel good when so many other people in the world are suffering?’
-We believe we need to prove our worthiness to be happy, that we need to achieve a certain level of success or approval from others so we can feel worthy.
Brene Brown calls this foreboding joy.
“I believe joy is probably the most vulnerable emotion we experience. We’re afraid that if we allow ourselves to feel it, we’ll get blindsided by disaster or disappointment. That’s why in moments of real joy, many of us dress-rehearse.” - Brene Brown
If we’re unable to let joy in our ordinary moments, happiness will always be some future fantasy.
Waiting for the Storm to Pass
As a child, I don’t remember seeing my parents ever truly happy. There was always some reason why they couldn’t be , usually because we didn’t have enough money. Although we had a roof over our heads, lived in a safe neighborhood, and had a little extra money for weekend trips here and there, it was never enough for my father.
In our suburban neighborhood outside of Silicon Valley, CA, all of my classmates had large homes, new cars, and took annual vacations. My family on the other hand, had a small two-bedroom apartment, cars over 20 years old, and lived paycheck to paycheck. My parents worked so hard to get ahead, running their own swimming pool installation business. Then, as if some cosmic joke, when their business finally started to achieve the financial success they’d striven for for years, they could only enjoy it momentarily before the economic crash of ’08 brought their business to bankruptcy.
But economic ruin is not the sad part of the story. The sad part is that they spent years striving towards their goal while being miserable along the way – always living for the future and waiting to be happy. My dad was always holding out for his future success. In his free time, instead of making more memories with us, he opted out of the present. He was always on his computer checking emails or playing online games. It was as if the present wasn’t good enough, like what we had didn’t matter. He believed he had to get to some future point and then he’d enjoy life more, enjoy time with us more. The present was never enough.
Fast forward and they’ve achieved their goal, but then they lose it all. By dad fell into depression and health issues, and never fully recovered. Their business also never recovered and he worked as a cab driver until he passed prematurely at age 68, never able to retire.
While the possibility of never being able to retire scares the bajeevies out of me, another part of his story scares me even more - the risk of postponing joy until life has passed me by.
It’s all too easy to hold off on making the most of each day - believing we’re incomplete without some form of external success to show for our lives.
So much of this dysfunctional thinking comes from comparing ourselves to others and trying to ‘keep up with the Jones.’
This taught me that although it’s important to work towards goals, we shouldn’t wait to be happy on the journey toward them. Because achieving them is never a guarantee. Nor is it guaranteed that achievement of our goal will make us happy in some far-off future.
While I was the main caregiver for my father has he slowly gave way to cancer, I found a magnet somewhere that had the quote “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” My first time hearing this quote, I bought it and placed it on his refrigerator, as if it would inspire him to lighten up. Unfortunately, it was too late for him but hopefully it’s not for me. I’m still learning how to dance in the rain of the storms of my life. But at least I’m no longer waiting.
Happiness is a Choice
What if the harsh truth is that happiness is simply a choice? What if it will always only be just a choice? A choice we must keep making every day.
Perhaps happiness is not a result of a well-lived life, but rather, an intentional way of living life. If we wait around for our lives to make us happy, we will be waiting forever.
The late Wayne Dyer believed, “There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.” Personally, I’ve come to the point where I’m fed up with feeling miserable most of the time. I’ve made the choice, albeit not always an easy choice – to stop waiting and be happy with who I am now and where I am right now. This doesn’t mean I stop working towards my goals, but that I don’t postpone my joy on the journey towards them. This requires turning goals into preferences rather than rigid conditions that must be met until we can be satisfied.
The path of intentional choice is empowering. Without it, we’re left passively waiting to feel good because of our actions, achievements or circumstances. True fulfillment arises despite our circumstances, not because of them.
The Only Reason that Matters
So why make the hard choice each day to be happy? There are endless reasons to be or not to be. But the only reason that can truly suffice is: LIFE IS SHORT! The only reason why to live each day with as much joy as possible is simply because your time here is limited. What matters most is the only moment we have – the present.
How often we forget this sad fact. But if you don’t start lightening up now, life will pass you by and you’ll have nothing to show for it except your misery. Your sad excuses for why you can’t enjoy yourself as much as you’d like to.
This is a memo to myself because I forget this almost every day. I get so easily caught up in complaining about stupid things that didn’t go my way. This is not about becoming complacent, but valuing your life enough to not ‘sweat the small stuff.’
My biggest regret is how much time I’ve wasted just making myself miserable for no good reason. Sure, I’ve had problems and adversities like everyone else, but I regret letting them rob me of my joy. I’ve let my problems poison my whole perspective and lose sight of the other areas in my life that were really amazing.
It’s an illusion to believe we’ll have enough time to find fulfillment later. Later turns into years passing us by with our hearts hardened and full of resentment. Our minds stumped by endless complaints and unanswered ‘what-ifs?’ Feeling imobilized by life-force sucking depression and fear. Sadly, the world and our lives will never be able to live up to our expectations. Even when we do accomplish our dream, the circumstance is often only fleeting - and so are our feelings of satisfaction.
This doesn’t mean we should stop trying to achieve our goals. Instead, we must remember that it is possible to enjoy life now even as we work towards them.
When we find our own guiding purpose of WHY to be happy, the HOW comes becomes easy. The how can be simply laughing with friends, watching the sunset, or kissing your spouse goodnight.
We can start today to softly let go of the conditions we think we need to be content. We can lower our rigid expectations and open up to what life has to offer us now. Happiness is really only one choice away.
