Don't Worry, Be Happy... now that you know the TRUTH

When it comes to happiness, there is a Pandora's box of misconceptions that many fall prey to, with one colossal myth reigning supreme. Brace yourself, because the truth can be a real eye-opener.

It's time to roll up our sleeves, shatter these illusions, and unearth the real essence of happiness once and for all. But I gotta warn you, one of these pills will take you down the rabbit hole.

With one quick search, you’ll find about 400 million pages telling you the secrets to happiness, or a 6 step guide to being happier (I have those too). But you have to put in a little work to find what it means to “be happy” and most of those pages don’t tell you the one vitally important thing. (#3)

The ones that DO say something talk about well-being and mental health, all good things, but they still don’t really answer the question, “What is Happiness?”

And there’s a reason… they can’t answer that for YOU. You're on your own, Kid.

 My HAPPY and your HAPPY probably aren’t the same thing

Happiness is subjective. Meaning, it’s based on your, individual perspective. Anyone who has watched Werner Herzog’s “Happy People: A Year in the Tiaga”, probably said the same thing I did. 

“Yeah, I get it, but I ain't moving to F’ing Siberia!”

(image IMDb)

Based on what Werner lays out, I guess those guys are pretty happy. Would you be?

You’ve probably seen the smiling pictures of the kids in the villages in the middle of Africa, or little towns in Mexico. Still, you and I both know the likelihood of us feeling “happy” in that same village is about as likely as Brad and Angelina staying together.

Not because those people aren’t happy, but because we have a different perspective. If that’s all you’ve ever known, well, you’d feel happy too.

And that’s part of the problem, Happiness is a feeling. And feelings are universally individual.

You’ve lived a different life than I have, or the guy on the corner with the cardboard, or the single mom in downtown Seattle. I can’t tell you how to feel. Nor do I want to. 

My wife surprised me one day when I came home from work. She is very organized, and almost OCD about it. I am a “pantser”. Think Sheldon Cooper and I'm Penny.

I came home that evening and she had organized my closet by the style of shirt, then the color of shirt, AND all of the hangers were facing the same direction. She was so proud of herself and couldn’t wait to share it with me. That stuff makes her happier.

Me? I panicked and honestly felt overwhelmed. There was no way I was going to be able to maintain this level of organization. I felt like Jack holding on to Rose's hand, it was only a matter of time until I sank.

We talked about the way it made me “FEEL” and why I was so upset. She understood and we made a plan to help me stick to the system. (It sadly did not last, the iceberg won.)

What makes her feel happy and what makes me feel happy are sometimes widely different.

There is one constant though, when it comes to feelings. It’s not the fact that we are each individually conditioned to what those feelings will be...It’s that they change, often. (insert female joke here, or don't, whatever makes you happy.)

 Feelings change and so do you 

What made you feel yesterday, won’t be the same thing today and it’ll be different tomorrow. That’s because our brains are masters at adaptation. Like Mystique on the X-Men, they change and shift with their environment.

Aside from major traumatic events that can invoke the same emotions for years, we do a fairly good job of learning to roll with it baby, and move on with life. That’s a good thing. Cause they never seem to stop coming.

On the same note, we’re also really good at resetting our baseline for most things NOT traumatic.

The first day you start a new job is a handful, it can create stress for some people. After a month or two, you look like you’ve been there for years. You adapted. Now, all that new stuff is just your regular daily routine. "Have you seen my stapler?"

Remember the first time you had ice cream? What about your first kiss? Your first time driving. I can close my eyes and see the exact location, I certainly remember the way it made me feel. And every song on the 5150 albums, the words too!

But now, you can hop in the car, go for ice cream, kiss your partner goodnight, and maybe not even crack a smile, depending on the day. I sure hope not, it's ice cream for goodness sake, but maybe.

We want it to always "feel like the first time", but it never does.

What made you “feel” happy yesterday, may not do it a week from now. That’s why people chase a bigger house, a new job, a new partner, the newest pair of shoes…a Groundhog Day chase of newer and better.

Once you have achieved the “thing” you thought was going to make you finally happy, you quickly realize you were wrong. Oh maybe for a time, yes, but it rarely lasts.

I’m always reminded of that Jim Carey quote, 

“I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they dreamed of, so they will know it’s not the answer”

(image https://pin.it/4DukDYLxe)

It’s not to say that being rich and famous and having everything you ever wanted is a bad thing, not even remotely. 

There’s also a great quote that says “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, rich is better.”

Between you and I, isn’t it funny how only people with a lot of money end up saying that "money doesn’t buy happiness"?

I know NOW, that other than buyin' me a boat, it’s 100% true, but you don’t hear a lot of people with no money saying stuff like that.

I can tell you that I’ve had months and years with no extra, late car payments, and more holes in my jeans than the Ramones. And I didn't buy them that way either.

My wife and I spent two years in Oklahoma going to school. We were full-time students and workin' for a livin' at a Mexican restaurant that had the BEST queso I’ve ever had in my life. (Ricardo’s in Tulsa) I still think about it!

We would buy 1lb. of ground beef, 4 cans of green beans, and 8 packages of instant Ramen noodles. Brown up the meat, throw in the beans, and add to the noodles; it’s a complete meal. That was almost a full week of dinners, for under $10. I still make it sometimes, this is how you remind me. (sorry Reese) 

If we had some to splurge, we’d go to the Chinese takeout around the corner from our apartment. For $6.00 we would split a container full of one entrée, one eggroll, and a crap ton of fried rice, another $1.00 for a second eggroll and we were living like kings.

It’s funny because we would record (with an old school VCR) all of the Thursday night shows like ER and Friends, stop for the takeout on our way home from work, and have one of the best memories we still hold. That made us HAPPY.

I’ve also been blessed now to have had some success in business and life. I like my house, my wife loves her car, and “yes”, she buys jeans with holes in them!

I've learned some of the real secrets to being happy, and that’s what I want to share with you.

I learned that THINGS would never give me what I ultimately was looking for; peace, joy, love, contentment, bliss, HAPPINESS. (THINGS ≠ HAPPINESS)

I like things, and I plan on having lots more, I hope you do too. But I wouldn’t trade them for my happiness, not even close.

So here’s the ugly duckling nobody talks about; I learned along the way that I could CHOOSE to be happy no matter what I wore, or ate, or drove.

My HAPPINESS is 100% up to ME!

 Happiness is a CHOICE, not an acquisition

(image W. carter)

It’s not the new iPhone, the concert tickets, or the 80” TV.

You do experience some JOY when you get those things, but it won’t stay and you’ll be on to the next thing. Don’t worry, you’re not a loser baby, and you’re 100% not alone.

Once you understand that you have the “CHOICE” to be happy no matter what car you drive or where you live, you might be able to live in Siberia and still be happy. I’m not sure about me though.

That CHOICE is the difference between a life of chasing a constantly moving target you’ll never hit and living a life filled with wonder, and joy; more Happy Days, less Real Housewives.

I don't want you to skim over this part. This is the most important thing you'll hear today.

You remember that scene in the matrix where Morpheus offers Neo the red pill or the blue pill. You take one, you wake up at home, no harm no foul and you go about your normal life.

You take the other and it rocks your world. It's simply giving you the TRUTH, but you can never go back.

Accepting that your HAPPINESS, your state of being and your own contentment in life is 100% COMPLETELY up to you, no matter the circumstance, no matter what other people do. Not easy, but all on you.

That's Freakin’ HARD. Because you can no longer blame any other person on the planet. (mic drop)

But it's also the TRUTH.

Life seems to always be coming at you. Most days are not so bad, some days you're RJ the racoon, and some days you're John McClane.

People leave your life, pets die, companies change direction at Christmas time, the car gets a flat and your kid breaks his arm. Like Forest Gump’s Momma says, “You never know what you’re gonna get.”

And some days you wake up and the last f’ing thing you want to do is to CHOOSE HAPPINESS.

But you can, you can learn how to "choose".

You’re going to fail A LOT. You'll feel like Ben Stiller in just about every movie he ever made. That’s okay too. You just start again tomorrow. If you fail tomorrow, start again the next day. Just don’t stop.

Then one day, you don’t even notice, but it was easier that day. Neo is starting to believe!

The traffic didn’t bother you as much. The boss didn’t make you want to shove pencils in his knees today. Your neighbor complained again that your MÖtley Crüe was too loud. (No such thing BTW)  But you took each of them in stride, maybe not with a smile on your face, but you didn’t pull a Michael Douglas in Falling Down.

You’re learning how to find happiness, right where you are. And not let somebody else steal it.

You took the time to stop and enjoy a cup of Starbucks coffee, made just the way you like. They even got your name right.

You put on the soundtrack from UP, instead of listening to Fox and Friends or CNN on the way in.

You started looking for Silver linings instead of plot twists.

Because while your boss is still a Mr. Burns look-a-like, you thought about the fact that lots of people are out of work right now, and you kind of like your job, just not this wanker.

And because your neighbor has no idea what good music is and you can’t fix stupid, you turned it down a couple of notches and kept on Rockin’.

You got to the end of the day and you could reflect back and say “Huh, that wasn’t too bad today, I bet tomorrow is even better.” 

You lay down to sleep that night without the anxiety and stress you normally carry, you can look forward to more “good days”, and you sleep like you Jager bombed the Nyquil. 

Because you CHOSE today. You picked Happiness. (Yeah, all those little choices above, they all lead to more happy, and thousands like them.)

 THAT’S my dream for you! 

More Happiness!

If you think that all sounds AWESOME, sign up for the email list and we’ll send you a weekly newsletter with more tips and tricks to help.

See ya’ll next time.

Dewey

(cover image: Image by Dee from Pixabay