By Maxim D’souza | Posted: May 13, 2020
I want you to do a quick mental activity. Think of your favorite city in the world. You can pick the one you live in or a place you visited before. Do you have the name in mind? Once you do, think of 3 reasons why you love it.
Next, recall one of your vacations which you hated. Once again, can you think of 3 reasons why you disliked it so much?
Now, if I asked you to paint a picture of the city you chose as your favorite, you will visualize all the good elements of it. You will relive the good memories and feel a sensation of happiness in your chest. On the other side, the one you hated you remember all the bad parts of the vacation. Even if you liked certain pieces of that trip, they do not occur to you immediately.
What if you reversed the exercise? If you first thought about the city that you despise, then the one you favored, the effect would have been drastically different. You would have imagined a contrasting picture altogether.
Did you realize how your state of mind determined your feelings? Your positive and negative feelings affected your view of the cities. Nothing in reality changed. The city remained the same. Another person might hate the city you liked and love the vacation spot you disliked. And, the trip is now in the past, it has nothing to do with your reality now.
Your emotions define how you feel about a place, a person, or a situation.
Happiness is an emotion
The dictionary defines an emotion as "a strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others." If you read the meaning carefully, you will notice that an emotion starts and ends with you. It has little to do with the situation or the world around you.
Happiness is also an emotion. The reality around you never changes. In simple words, you cannot alter the past. Neither can you change the city nor the experience of the vacation. Even the scientists who believe in the theoretical possibility of time travel agree that changing the past is impossible.
What you have control over is how you perceive the world around you and the events that affect you. Whether you choose to see them in a bright light or with a sense of gloominess is a choice you make.
Most people view torture as a horrendous and terrifying experience. Yet, one person managed to find meaning amidst all the suffering. His name is Viktor Frankl, who survived 4 different concentration camps during the world war. Of course, he did not like what he had to undergo. Yet, he found a purpose to survive no matter what he had to endure.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- Viktor Frankl
During the holocaust, Viktor witnessed many prisoners losing the will to survive. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he writes about a particular pattern he noticed every Christmas. During the end of each year, he observed an increase in the number of deaths.
That's because people had a ray of hope of getting back to their families by Christmas or the new year. When their dreams got shattered, they lost the desire to live anymore. It appeared as if their body had succumbed to the suffering, but it was their mind that had perished.
How to make happiness a part of your life
How happy you are today has little to do with the brand of the car you drive or the size of the house you live in. A poor man can find joy in his two daily meals while a billionaire can remain stressed his whole life.
Here is how you can make happiness a part of your lifestyle:
1. Shun negativity
What you choose to give is what you will receive in return. Let us take a simple example where you send an email to your co-worker, and you do not receive a reply. What follows next depends on the choice you make:
a. Presume bad intentions.
You can assume that your colleague did not reply on purpose. Maybe he plans to hinder your growth. Or...
b. Look at the brighter side.
You can assume the person missed your email or forgot to reply. You can make a quick phone call to ask what you need.
If you show your negative side, your teammate will sense it in some shape or form. Soon, you will find him giving you the cold shoulder himself. Instead, if you choose to build a better relationship, the other person might warm up to you even if he had harmful intentions.
2. Cultivate a culture of no blame
· "If that had happened, I would have succeeded."
· "The idea failed because ..."
· "I tried a new approach, but"
When you find yourself using the words "if, because, and but," watch out. Chances are you are trying to blame another person, or the circumstances for your mistakes. Finding something to blame is the easiest way to sweep our mistakes under the rug.
You feel comfortable blaming the market for the failure of your business rather than admitting that you need better entrepreneurial skills.
It is easier to blame your partner for not understanding your thoughts than trying to understand why she was angry with you.
Reasons help you convince yourself that you're the best, and the world is at fault. No matter what the situation, you probably have some areas of your life, or even perception, that you can change or improve. Blaming others and finding reasons is a complete waste of time.
3. Offer gratitude
Have you met a positive person who always wears a bright smile on his face? It is a pleasure to speak to such people because they lighten up your mood. I doubt if you would ever choose to be rude to such a person.
How about the person who complains about every little problem in his life? Whenever you can, you choose to run away from such people.
What about the co-worker who is ready to help you at any point in time? You will never be able to reject a request coming from him. You might even work extra hours to return the favor if required.
If you offer happiness and gratitude to those around you, people will reciprocate. You reap what you sow. You can sow even more happiness by joining a FREE Breath & Meditation session, online with a live instructor.
4. Find happiness in little things
You do not have to wait for a million dollars to buy all the happiness you are craving for. You can find delight in a bowl of ice-cream if you want to. You can experience contentment in the relationships that you have.
If you believe you will find joy when you have all the materialistic things you desire, happiness will elude you forever.
Today, you might want a million dollars and a fancy car. Next year, you will aim for 10 million and a beach house in Hawaii. A few years later, you will try chasing a billion dollars and a private jet. Your desire for worldly pleasures will never end, no matter how much you have.
When the global pandemic happened, you were forced indoors. You realized the importance of little things in life, such as freedom to take a walk or eat at a restaurant you like. But you don't need a virus outbreak to teach you the value of what you have. If you open your eyes and become more mindful, you can spot them anytime.
5. Identify your why
Try to identify "the why" that makes you happy. Too often, we chase goals which somebody else cares about.
You want a bigger house because your relative got one. He might have a family of 5 while you are just a couple, but you don't take that into account.
You want an expensive car because your co-worker has one. He might be a car enthusiast, but you don't care.
In your quest to look better than the others, you pursue goals which mean nothing to you. When you achieve them, you wonder why you don't feel delighted about it. That's because they never really mattered to you in the first place.
Identify what makes you happy and go after those goals alone. The fewer targets you aim for, the more happiness you experience. If you have too many goals, they are most likely somebody else's goals which you assume are your own.
Conclusion
You don't need to earn a lot more or reach a specific destination to experience happiness. If you stand up right now and turn a full circle, you will find one or more things to feel happy about.
From the time you wake up, every day of your life is a combination of little moments that occur in pieces. Some of them give you pleasure, some challenge you and some others are neutral. When you go to bed at the end of the day, you can no longer change what happened. You can choose to feel happy about the joyful moments or whine about the obstacles.
So, what's your choice?
Maxim D'souza is a self improvement blogger who has over a decade of experience with startups. He has been a part of multiple failed start ups and learned the hard way. On his blog Productive Club, he shares the lessons he has learned about productivity, time management, entrepreneurship, and cognitive biases.
