The topic of happiness can come across as cheesy or superficial. Life isn’t easy, so how can someone tell me joy is simple? Then there’s the whole genre of self-help books. Do they work? It’s easy to be skeptical.
The problem with happiness is we wait for something good to happen, and then we’ll be happy. But life is unpredictable, and waiting for something good to happen isn’t reliable. And even if something good does happen, how long do our good feelings last? Probably not as long as we’d like.
For those reasons, I say we decide to get happy on purpose and on a regular basis.
Ridiculous! Who does that? Well… I don’t find the idea all that ridiculous anymore. I believe more and more that joy is a choice, but it takes practice and effort.
Tips for Happiness
The best way I’ve found to get happy on purpose is through meditation, which I’ve written about before. I practice quieting my mind, a.k.a. the inner chatter, and eventually the inner chatter becomes positive instead of worrisome or burdened. Meditation is a way to cultivate and tend to a positive emotional state. And I believe we should cultivate it much like we water a plant. It requires upkeep and persistence.
Besides meditation, we have our genuine passions and interests. Making those things a priority in our life means more happiness on purpose. Don’t wait on happenstance for something good to happen. Find a way to feel good, deliberately, each and every day.
Hi Kyle- thanks for this. I like the simple prospect you present, of happy thoughts starting to predominate over unhappy, with a regular practice of meditation.
I was reading recently from a book by an American Buddhist nun named Pema Chodron, called “When Things Fall Apart” One of the repeated ideas is that when you’re meditating, you can learn to observe all thoughts you have, both pleasant and unpleasant. Every time you notice any thought at all, you just say (in your head or out loud, I guess it doesn’t matter really) the single word “Thinking”. You learn to have an investigative and warm-hearted attitude toward your own thoughts, an attitude she says is “maitra” in Sanskrit, and which could be translated as “loving-kindness”.
Happiness then becomes something that doesn’t depend on your circumstances, because you love yourself no matter whether your circumstances are “bad” (and you feel bad) or “good” (and you feel good).
Thanks for sharing, Joel, I like this insight! I think it can be hard to be investigative and warm-hearted to our thoughts sometimes, but this will be something to try out.