Positive Mind
HAPPINESS IS NOT SOME'THING'
….. Happiness is not some'thing'
Today was another grim day for the newspaper industry not only had they excelled themselves in the depressing news department but today was enough to make the most positive of us feel a little cheesed off with his lot.
So I took a piece of paper from my Filofax and folded it in two, then in the left hand column I began to list all those things that were on my mind, those that had a more negative impact on me – generally getting me down. I wrote things like – why does some old guy keep looking back at me from the mirror? My best selling book – I will start writing it tomorrow! Did I really need to spend that money from my savings account that is solely there for paying my tax bill? The list actually went all the way to the bottom of the page then round the back and filled the left hand column there too.
Then I started working on the right hand column – and began listing all those things that were positive and made me feel happy. Things like – how healthy I still am despite the increasing number of grey hairs on my thinning scalp; my job, which I enjoy; my wife who makes me laugh and especially my children.
And you know what happened, I immediately began to feel happier, I could feel my spirits lift, and before I knew it I had filled both sides and then another whole sheet of paper too. It was extraordinary; the list on the right far outnumbered those on the left by more than 2 to 1; and before I started I’d been feeling particularly gloomy, sparked off by all that negative overkill spilling from the news machine every moment of the day.
All this thinking about being happy got me thinking; what is happiness? Are happy people naturally happy? Can it be learned? Are people who win the lottery happy people? Does becoming a parent make you happy?
I immediately turned to my trusty and rather dog-eared Oxford English Dictionary which says; HAPPY – 1. feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. 2A. fortunate, characterized by happiness. B. Apt. pleasing. 3. (and I particularly like this one) slightly drunk.
It didn’t help as much as I’d hoped so I typed HAPPINESS into my yahoo search, and at the top of the page I was directed to Ebay – find happiness on Ebay it said. First up was a ceramic mug, emblazoned with – happiness is my warm steamy horse – buy it now for £4.49. Next was a 7 inch single record, One Sides My Happiness by Elvis, to be honest with 6 days, 3 hours and 25 minutes to go I didn’t want to wait that long for the answers I needed.
Perhaps Doctor Happy could provide it more quickly; he was second on the search list. Dr Timothy Sharp is Dr Happy, author of The Happiness Handbook and founder of The Happiness Institute; he says “although life can be difficult for many people, the good news is that achieving happiness requires nothing more than practicing a few simple disciplines every day. Happiness need not be elusive. You can choose to be happy now.”
That seemed more positive, and more attainable that a warm horse or watching a plastic disc revolving at 45 revs per minute hoping to feel a little more cheerful by the time it finished.
I then had a look at some of the material I’d been collecting over the years; ideas and theories about the mind, and how positive thoughts have much greater benefit to your health than negative ones – the kind of thing you’ve been reading here over the past ten issues in Live it! Naturally Magazine.
So what would it take for you to be happy – every day, all the time. Would you be happy if you say: won a million pounds on the lottery; found your perfect partner; got a new job or a better career; you were healthier or more successful; what would it take for you to be really happy?
Well the bad news is, if you answered YES to any of my examples – then you will never achieve your true measure of happiness. I expect that surprises you! But don’t let it. The truth is – nothing can make you happy – that may sound something of a depressing statement, but it’s not meant to be. In the writing trade, it’s a little device that will intrigue you enough to make you want to read right to the end. But more importantly it is also to make you realize that things will never make you happy.
Being happy doesn’t depend on a specific outcome, or something that happens to you. If you could pop into Sainsburys and buy a kilogram of happiness – all would be well in the world. But we can’t – and anyway, how would you keep it in the packet; it would try leaping out all over the till!
Our society deceives us into thinking that having things – something external is what makes us happy; perhaps a new car, a pair of shiny new shoes or the latest fad diet. In truth it doesn’t; it’s all advertising spin, it’s just others trying to profit from our emotions simply to line their own pockets in the hope they will be happier.
You see, happiness is really a feeling deep within us – something we experience. Most of us get into the habit of not being very happy, we choose not to be happy because we spend most of our time focusing on what is wrong in our lives – we may keep doing things that we don’t enjoy, never allowing ourselves the luxury of experiencing happiness. And it’s not the lottery win, or the new relationship that will help us achieve true and lasting happiness – but the feeling we get when we begin to appreciate the positive things happening in our life.
I know that can sound a bit confusing; so let me explain. Let’s take the example of the million pound lottery win. If you suddenly found your current account with a positive balance of £1,000,000 – it is not the lottery win that will allow you to experience happiness, nor the feelings of financial security, or the freedom that comes with that amount of money. All these can be mistakenly thought of as a source of happiness.
Similarly, if you are hoping a new job will create the happiness you have always craved – with it’s feelings of security, the fact that you’re able to pay your bills on time and the sense of relief that creates, these feelings can also be easily mistaken for happiness too.
We can all make this mistake – because it’s not security or peace of mind that allows you to be really happy – you experience happiness when you do what you enjoy, and when you focus on the positive things in your life. If you are not doing that then you can never be truly happy.
So if winning the lottery, feeling security in your life, having the job you always wanted or the perfect relationship is not the true source of happiness – where on earth do you find it?
Like many things, the answer really is quite simple. It’s about shifting your focus. To begin with, you must banish all thoughts of what’s wrong in your life. Instead of looking at what you don’t like – perhaps about yourself, or your job – change the focus to what you really like and appreciate. Do what I did, and make a list of all the positive things in your life. You may find yourself thinking – I don’t have anything positive in my life – I just want to be happy. But believe me you do have positive aspects, you are just not focusing on them properly.
Let’s take a look at the very basic things we could call positive – if you had a warm dinner, that is a positive event, so is having a roof over your head, a loving partner and pleasant conversations – these are all positive aspects of your life, and everyday wonderful things go on you perhaps take for granted, neither noticing or recognizing them as positives. If you use these as your baseline for happiness, appreciating and acknowledging them as great things happening in your life, you will begin to experience happiness at a much deeper level, and it will allow you to focus on changing those areas of your life you are not happy with, to things that you are.
If you were studying a basic course in practical psychology, one of the first lessons you would learn is that by paying attention primarily to what is wrong in your life, directs the subconscious mind to continue creating more of the same, more of what makes you unhappy. That is why so many of us never experience true happiness, because of the constant focus on the negative aspects of life and living. So it makes sense to begin training and redirecting your subconscious mind to start creating what you really wish for – and as I suggested earlier, you can begin the process by making that list of positives.
Now we know that being happy does not depend on some event taking place – we can begin to follow another simple exercise, and I hope you will enjoy this – it’s learning to have fun!
I love to go cycling with my son – that to me is fun; so is throwing an impromptu BBQ for my friends; or just sitting in the garden with those I care for most and laughing and acting like a teenager again.
But you don’t have to be silly to enjoy yourself, you may prefer to enjoy your time gardening, restoring an old car, or collecting stamps – taking long walks or reading a good book; you really don’t have to act like an adolescent. Do what you enjoy, and if you’re not doing at least one thing you get pleasure from, start now – right this minute; and when you do, the most important ingredient is that you focus only on that to the exclusion of everything else. This will ensure you truly and exclusively enjoy that one activity, and begin to experience the happiness it will bring. Simply shift everything else from your mind – your focus.
I was with a friend and business associate recently, we were having lunch whilst at the same time watching a group of people play volleyball on the beach. We both used to play when we were younger, and as a joke asked if he’d brought his swimming shorts so we could have a go. “Even if I did,” he said “I haven’t the time.” I looked at him; he really looked like he hadn’t had fun in ages, for all his 40 something years, his face exhibited a seriousness out of control; he was an extraordinarily successful businessman, but his personal life was like a low lying island waiting to be breached by the rising tide. I said, “perhaps you should take some time out for yourself, because the way things are you don’t see your own health as important as the next deal.” It was obvious he thought that pulling off his next big deal would make him happy; but he was denying himself the opportunity of enjoying himself and being happy right now.
If we all put ourselves in the shoes of my business associate, then it is up to all of us to make the decision to enjoy ourselves right now, because it is only then we begin to experience true happiness. Training our mind to begin seeing and consequently living a happier life is a far better way forward than the alternatives of worry, and depression, and looking at our complicated world and letting it make us feel sad.
We only get this one shot at life; so we must all get the most out of it we possibly can, realizing that it is not necessarily the successful business or the latest Range Rover that will satisfy us and make us happy, but something far more important - that thing we each have inside – that thing we cannot describe but is at the very core of who we are and what makes us tick.
True happiness may be sought,
caught or thought,
but never brought.
No-one can define happiness.
You have to be unhappy
to understand it.
Happiness does not come
from what you have, but
who you are.
The place to be happy is here.
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to make others so.