Choice 8
Happiness Is a Choice
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne
For many, happiness is the ultimate treasure sought in Γ the quest for a full and satisfying life. Yet, as the above quotes suggest, our pursuit of happiness may be the primary obstacle to ever really experiencing it. This is indeed an odd and challenging characteristic of happiness.84
In his book You Can Be Happy No Matter What, best-selling author Richard Carlson insightfully discusses this challenge:
Happiness is a state of mind, not a set of circumstances. . . you can never find happiness by “searching,” because the moment you do, you imply it is found outside yourself. Happiness isn’t outside yourself. It is a feeling—the natural feeling of your innate healthy psychological functioning.… When you understand that happiness is nothing more than a feeling, you can help it grow and maintain itself when you do feel it.… Happiness requires no effort at all. In fact, it’s more of a letting go of unhappiness than it is a striving for happiness.”38
That happiness can be viewed as a feeling originating inside of ourselves is perhaps not too surprising to most of us. However, the idea that it’s the pursuit of happiness that can actually keep us from having it is more challenging to grasp. After all, isn’t the pursuit of happiness one of the fundamental rights that the founding fathers of the United States tried to build into the very fabric of the nation? If pursuing happiness is not the way to become happy, then what is? According to Carlson the key to experiencing happiness may rest in letting go of unhappiness.85
And he is in good company when he suggests this powerfully different perspective. The Dalai Lama offers a similar message. His view is that we are often primary contributors to the pain and suffering in our lives that can keep us from the happiness we desire:
. . . there are many ways in which we actively contribute to our own experience of mental unrest and suffering. Although, in general, mental and emotional afflictions themselves can come naturally, often it is our own reinforcement of those negative emotions that makes them so much worse.
To elaborate on this important idea, he goes on to explain that a primary way we add to the pain and suffering that causes us so much unhappiness is by:
being overly sensitive, overreacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally. We tend to take small things too seriously and blow them out of proportion, while at the same time we often remain indifferent to the really important things, those things which have profound effects on our lives and long-term consequences and implications.”39
Happiness is a choice. This is a powerful and hopeful idea. But the truth of this statement does not rest in the pursuit of wishes and desires outside ourselves. The key is not to chase after those things in the world that cause a sense of elation, a temporary high. Such moments can be pleasurable, but they do not offer real lasting happiness. Rather, they offer little more than a momentary emotional lift. To count on such moments for our happiness in life is undependable at best. At worst, we are left at the mercy of external events, approval of others, and momentary and continuously shifting emotional states. The real key, suggested by the Dalai Lama, Richard Carlson, and likely your own life experience if you listen to what it has to say, is to let go of unhappiness.86
Consider the following story about Ramone, who has just met Kyle during an exercise at a personal development seminar offered in their city.
Participants were asked to find a partner to talk about how they felt about their current quality of life. This was designed to prepare them for some personal goal setting. Kyle described his life to Ramone in a surprisingly candid manner. He welcomed the opportunity to get some things off his chest with someone he was not likely to see again. Kyle seemed to “have it all” and yet he seemed very unhappy. He talked about his many disappointments right up to their next break.
During the break Ramone took a short walk by himself to stretch his legs while he pondered his own satisfaction with life relative to Kyle’s. Ramone noted that Kyle grew up in a privileged upper-class family with two attentive parents and a supportive sister. He had received much encouragement throughout his school years and had received several scholastic honors, eventually earning an Ivy League college degree. And in Kyle’s words he had “married well” and was moving into the beginnings of a successful career as an executive. Kyle admitted that he pretty much had it all, yet he felt surprisingly dissatisfied. He could easily name a long list of disappointments and frustrations in his life. For Kyle, it seemed that the glass was well over half full in his life, but all he seemed to focus on was the part of the glass that was empty.87
Ramone puzzled at this. He had to admit that he generally felt pretty good about his life, despite a difficult background and a current modest lifestyle. He came from a poor household, and his father left his family when he was a small child. Being single with two children, Ramone’s mother often had to work two jobs at a time to pay the bills. Ramone and his sister experienced a variety of childcare arrangements while growing up in a low-income part of town. And many of the adults he encountered, in and outside of school, were very harsh and punitive.
As Ramone grew into his adult years, he was initially bitter about his childhood. His mother had rarely been around, and when she was she was usually cranky. And he received little encouragement from his overworked teachers in the crowded classes he attended. Eventually, despite this difficult background, Ramone managed to get a part-time job and pay his way through a local community college for two years and then through the state university to receive his BA degree. Now, a few years later, he is married and has a full-time office job with modest pay and benefits. His income and his wife’s combined barely cover their monthly bills. Yet they have been discussing starting a family and the possibility of purchasing a home within a year or so. Ramone likes the idea but cannot currently see how they can make this work given their tight finances.88
Overall, Ramone works hard and struggles to make ends meet but is very content with his life. He reflects back from time to time on his difficult past, but more often he focuses on being thankful for all he has and the positive possibilities for his future. Somewhere along the way Ramone made a choice to let go of the unhappiness of his past. Now he enjoys a stable kind of contentment in his life that seems to transcend his circumstances.
Admittedly, the story of Ramone and Kyle is a bit simplistic, but it does raise an important feature of life. The real life stories of those who seem to have the most, the lives of the rich and famous, are often very sad. Divorce, drug and alcohol abuse, painful psychiatric problems, and a variety of other telltale signs of unhappiness litter the landscape of many of what would seem should be enviable lives.
In the end, the idea that happiness is a choice is quite compelling. More than riches, fame, and good fortune, a decision to be happy seems to be the key. Yet making this choice is tricky. The key lesson is that happiness is not something that can be effectively sought directly. Rather, it is the choice to let go of unhappiness that provides the surest bridge to meaningful long-term happiness.