Riddle
Imagine that over the past week you:
- got a tattoo on your butt,
- punched your neighbor in the face,
- got married,
- robbed a bank,
- became a kidney donor,
- had plastic surgery,
- went to a monastery,
- devoured a huge pizza in three minutes, or
- jumped off a very high bridge.
Wow, you’ve had quite an eventful week.
Question: What do all the above events have in common?
Answer: You could have done all of this to feel a little happier.
After all, it’s the desire to feel better that motivates all your actions, and indeed the actions of every other person too.
People constantly argue about the meaning of life, but generally agree that we do what we do because we want to become happy and stay that way.
If it weren’t for circumstances, I’d be happy!
We put off happiness for later, using all sorts of excuses, six of which are listed below.
Excuse #1: I’d be happy if I lived somewhere else
– Maybe I could start my life over by moving to another city! – we often tell ourselves.
If I could get to Tibet, I’d probably be able to grasp the meaning of life…
Some people cherish grand dreams of traveling to distant lands in search of the meaning of life. Jim went to the Himalayas. And one day, when he, utterly exhausted from diarrhea, sat on the corner of a dusty street dreaming of a hot bath, it suddenly hit him like a bolt of lightning: “Maybe ‘enlightenment’ can be achieved at the Ritz-Carlton hotel too?”
Searching for the meaning of life in Tibet is very romantic, but Tibetan enlightenment only works for Tibetans! For most of us, the meaning of life is probably best sought somewhere in the nearby suburbs.
As a rule, there’s no better place to start a new life than where you are right now.
Excuse #2: I could be happy if I were older (or younger)!
Do you think happiness depends on age? In the 1990s, scientist Ronald Inglehart published the results of a large-scale “happiness study,” in which 170,000 people from 16 countries answered questions like “How happy are you?” or “Are you satisfied with your life?”
Inglehart was interested in how much a person’s age affects their level of happiness. The data analysis was done by age group, meaning the responses of participants aged 15–24, 25–34, 35–44, and so on were evaluated separately. So, which group do you think has it worst of all? Teenagers? Those who are halfway through their life? And which group do you think is the happiest? Judge for yourself:
15-24 years…………………………81% satisfied with their life
25-34 years…………………………80% satisfied with their life
35-44 years…………………………80% satisfied with their life
45-54 years…………………………79% satisfied with their life
55-64 years…………………………79% satisfied with their life
65 years and older……………81% satisfied with their life
The results for all age groups were almost completely identical! In another study, psychologists William Stock and Morris Okun from the University of Arizona arrived at exactly the same conclusions. They analyzed the results of over a hundred psychological surveys and, in the final tally, got the following: age-related fluctuations in people’s perceived levels of happiness amount to no more than just 1%!
Despite the abundance of myths and all the talk about “difficult teenagers” and the “midlife crisis,” age has no real impact on the degree of life satisfaction!
It’s not about age, it’s about mindset.
Excuse #3: I’ll be happy when I find the perfect life partner!
The only thing we reliably know about all happy couples is that happy people were happy even before they met their significant others.
No one can ever MAKE us happy! Where did we even get the idea that someone has the power to MAKE us happy? Maybe from songs and movies, because in songs and films people say to each other: “Before I had you, I was lonely, I was plagued by constant failures, but with you my life changed!” But that’s also a myth. In the real world, people say to each other: “Before I had you, things were really crappy for me. but WITH YOU, MY LIFE HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DESTROYED!”
Happy people attract happy people. Unhappy people attract unhappy people. When you’re in a good mood, have you ever thought to yourself, “I need to go meet some gloomy person”? Never! You go looking for other happy people. As you are, so will your surroundings be. To have happy people around you, you first need to learn to smile yourself.
“How can you even live with that jerk?”
If you’re in a bad mood or depressed, only you can change your thoughts. Step by step, you climb out of the pit, start looking for the good in life, and accordingly, attract happy friends and positive colleagues.
In the real world, it’s not other people who change our lives. We do it ourselves.
Excuse #4: I would be happy if I didn’t have these problems!
You will always have problems. And when there are no big problems, small ones become the problems.
We all have a kind of “hierarchy of reasons to worry,” and we worry about the things that are most important at that moment. When you break your leg, you don’t pay much attention to a headache… until the leg heals. Your husband’s snoring is annoying only until there’s a fire in the bedroom.
So how can we get less annoyed? We just need to understand that all stress is generated by the rules that exist in our heads. If you relax these rules or get rid of them altogether, you can become much happier.
You need to make a conscious decision: “No one is going to ruin my day today.” You need to make an agreement with yourself that “neither the parking attendant, nor the traffic cop, nor the rude waitress can spoil the next 24 hours of my life.” You need to remind yourself that in the context of what’s happening in the world, a confrontation with a rude cashier at the store is not really that big of a drama.
There is always an alternative to anger. You can simply be surprised or laugh. The fewer rules you have in your head about what life should be like and how the people around you should behave, the easier it will be for you to become a happy person.
Excuse #5: Oh, if only I had this!
There is a group of people in the world who have dedicated their entire lives to making your life seem extremely unsatisfactory. To achieve their goal, these brilliant minds use every trick in the book and spend billions of dollars! To convince you that you are lacking something, they exploit feelings of shame, guilt, and even your sense of humor. And then they claim to know the secret to your happiness and promise you the moon!
You think I’m talking about TV preachers? No, I’m talking about advertisers and marketers. Their mission is to convince you that you are unhappy with what you have, so that you will buy what they have.
By evaluating ourselves based on the things we own, we enter a losing battle. You buy a designer handbag. On the first day, you’re over the moon; the pleasure lasts for another couple of days, but by day ten, the joyful excitement fades, and you find yourself wondering, “What should I buy next to feel better?”
Most of us have a lot of stuff. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The real question is, why do we need all of it?
You might have many books, electronic gadgets, photos, souvenirs, or, say, a beloved car or yacht. That’s wonderful. And without a doubt, all these things have made your life more pleasant and convenient. In this way, you are consciously improving your quality of life. And none of this has anything to do with what the neighbors might think or what impression you make on others.
Things only bring joy to someone who knows how to live joyfully without them.
Excuse #6: I’ll be happy when…
How often do we postpone happiness for later?
We treat happiness like some mirage shimmering on the horizon. It’s as if we’re crawling through a desert, seeing a sign far ahead that says “HAPPINESS,” and telling ourselves, “If I can just get THERE, I’ll be happy.” Sometimes we come up with logical justifications: “We can’t live happily yet because we haven’t paid off the car loan, but next April…” But then next April comes, the kids catch the flu, the mother-in-law comes to visit, and we say again, “Well, by the beginning of October for sure.”
Perfect order never exists in life! For example, you study for a long time, get your diploma, land the job you’ve dreamed of your whole life, walk into the office, and your boss reeks of sweat. You finally go on vacation with your family, and your father falls at home and breaks his leg. Then at some point you tell yourself, “I’ll just get a divorce and start over. Then life will have fewer complications.” But there will always be plenty of complications in life.
Of course, you can minimize these complications, but getting rid of them completely? No way! That means you need to find joy in life even during tough times. Just observe life with curiosity. Even if you get a court summons, even if you’re scheduled for surgery, see it as an adventure and enjoy life.
I’ll be happy when there is world peace.
“I can’t be happy until there’s peace all over the world,” says Mary. This is, of course, noble, but not very wise! It’s better to be happy today… and do everything to bring peace to that little piece of the world where you live right now. It’s entirely possible to perceive the world as it is, while still taking on a certain responsibility for improving it.
The happiest people never tie their happiness to some external events.
* From the book by Andrew Matthews «Happiness in Hard Times»