be aware of what you are exposing yourself to. You can’t change anything until you’re aware.
Second, ask yourself if something is good or bad for you. Again, something bad once in a while is okay, but if it’s happening all the time, then your whole life can start becoming negative.
Third, if you want to change for the better, then make the choice to give up bad things and bring in only good things that are healthy for your mind, feed your happiness, and don’t take away from it. This could include bringing into your life people who are good for you. Start listening—really listening—to how things affect you. Do they put a smile on your face after you do it? Not just for the moment but permanently. For example, if I drink too much alcohol right now, I may feel better, but tomorrow morning, I’m going to feel horrible. In the long run, is what you’re exposing yourself to good for you? Is it helping you be a happier person? If so, then do more of it. If it’s negative, then do less.
These three steps—look at what you are doing, ask yourself if it is good or bad for you, and then start doing things that are good and doing less of the things that are bad for you—can give you a beautiful life. But we do need to acknowledge how powerful what we expose ourselves to is and how much it can impact us. Once we acknowledge it and really see it for what it is, then we will begin to move in the direction of making sure that everything we’re exposing ourselves to is moving us in the direction of happiness.
The most important consideration in finding happiness is what we think about all day long. When we watch the commercial that is teaching us that wealth addiction is the way to happiness, we are reinforcing that idea. When we think that if we had certain things we’d be happy, we are strengthening that thought. Yes, things around us are powerful, but what is far more powerful is when we let brainwashing take hold and start reinforcing those ideas through our own thoughts.
We choose what we think and can encourage positive influences on our thoughts by, for instance, listening to my Happiness Podcast and finding ways to be happy. These are just as, if not more, powerful at creating change in us and brainwashing us in a good way. Why not brainwash towards happiness instead of towards desires and things that are never fulfilling?
It was a lesson that helped me in the most powerful way when I realized that, yes, everything matters but what if I exposed myself to very positive, loving, helpful things? I will become healthier and happier. It works. It’s a law of nature. So let’s choose that path of happiness. Let’s choose to expose ourselves to things that fill us up and not empty us so that we can all have beautiful, happy lives.
Chapter Eight
You Deserve to Be Happy NOW!
You’ve seen all the tabloids at the grocery store’s checkout, sensationally describing the lives of people all over the world and how some of them haven’t turned out very well. These newspapers and magazines usually pick on famous people who have done some misdeed or who’ve had something go wrong in their lives, and the tabloid is trying to exploit it to sell papers. I don’t think I’ve ever purchased one of those magazines because I think every person matters, even the rich and famous, and in their lives I’d love for them to be happy too; we all deserve to be happy. However, I do think these newspapers and magazines have something to teach us.
What almost everyone, and I do mean almost everyone, thinks in the pursuit of happiness is “When I obtain this, then I’ll be happy.” Often, this goal is in pursuit of a relationship, a new job, a certain amount of money, or great fame. Yet the lesson of the tabloids is that the famous people who have many of the things we say we want aren’t happy themselves. But why? What’s going on here?
We see this on a lesser level among our friends. For instance, when someone does well in business and now is very wealthy, we wonder, “But is he happy?” Or even with a classmate who fell in love and married his high school sweetheart, we ask, “But is he happy?” Are these people who got what they wanted happy? We wonder and in asking the question, we tend to lessen what they achieved by thinking they didn’t find happiness. They reached an empty goal. This reasoning reinforces for us that these different things people achieve don’t bring them happiness. Fame, money, success, love—friends as well as the famous may have these things, but it doesn’t mean they’re happy.
Interestingly, the reverse is also true. When we know someone is happy, it never occurs to us to ask, “Are they wealthy? Are they at the top of their field? Are they famous? Do they live in a beautiful home? Is their spouse gorgeous? Did their kids get into an ivy league school?” A person could be poor, uneducated, living alone, and not be very attractive, but still be happy. We all know people that are like that. And we envy them.
In my book, Living a Peaceful Life, I talk about a woman I know named Betty, who was physically in pain and very poor, her only child lived in a foreign country, and yet she was clearly one of the happiest people you could ever meet. She even described herself that way, as a very happy person.
What is going on here?
This is very simple: We don’t need anything to be happy.
Nothing has to happen to make us happy. There are people out there who don’t have anything and are extremely happy. Happiness stands alone. However, anything else doesn’t.
The tabloids keep teaching us that people who are wealthy sometimes aren’t happy. People that are famous sometimes aren’t happy. Even people who are smart aren’t necessarily happy. A doctor friend of mine told me his son got into Harvard and that Harvard students have a problem with depression. I think what happens there is that a student finally reaches the top of the academic world and then finds out that being there doesn’t bring him the happiness he expected; so he struggles with depression.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all suggesting we should stop pursuing our goals. We just need to understand that reaching our goals may not, in and of itself, make us happy. When I work with young professionals, they sometimes tell me, “Well, when I get there, I’ll feel differently. I’ll be happy.” But it’s always the same: it doesn’t work. Just reaching our goals isn’t what is going to bring us happiness.
So what IS going to bring us happiness? What can we do instead? It’s actually very simple. If happiness is what we pursue and only what we pursue and we have good direction, then we’ll end up being happy. Other things won’t get us to our happiness. So, we have to be careful about how much time and energy we give to these other pursuits.
Let me give you a clear example of how this works. In my work, I meet many professional people: medical doctors, psychologists, professors, researchers, lawyers, and others. What I’ve found along the way is that they spend a lot of time working on their goals of being a professional and reaching the top of their field. But, they don’t spend much time enjoying themselves and being happy right now.
In my own case, I love sunsets. I live in southern California, and we have beautiful sunsets. Now, you’re not likely to ask me if I’m happy because I’m watching a sunset. You’re just going to see that I’m watching a sunset and that’s making me happy. But when I talk to my professional colleagues, it’s amazing how hard it is to get them to stop and watch sunsets. I often encourage them, but they resist. You know what the problem is? They know sunsets are awesome, but they’re too busy pursuing their goals so that some later day they can watch sunsets. Really, that’s basically what they do. They think, “Someday I’ll be happy.” I think, instead, “Why not be happy now?”
Life is replete with things we can do that will encourage us to be happy—spending time in nature, smelling a rose, watching an animal in the wild. These are things that, in and of themselves, are so astounding that it’s
