Can anyone be happy?

January 20th, 2008 John Hill Posted in Happiness |

It’s quite easy to feel happy momentarily, but feeling generally so happy that answer to question “Are you happy?” would be YES! is a bit harder. Stress and health problems (just two examples) can make it harder to feel happy, but happiness is just a state of mind. That means it’s possible to feel happy no matter what the situation is, it’s just harder. This site is about two things: finding happiness and solving health problems that make it harder to feel happy.

Instant happiness

Take a deep breath. Relax. Smile. Think: “I’m feeling happy”. Keep the feeling of happiness as long as you can by not thinking anything at all.

Quite likely you felt at least couple of seconds of happiness, then real world thoughts invided again your brain and the feeling was gone. This example shows how happiness is independent of any situation. Most of us don’t let ourselves feel happy because we have stuff to do, goals to achieve, pain, discomfort, etc. We believe we are not allowed to feel happy when everything isn’t “perfect”.

I am not an exception. One of the reasons why I have so persistently searched for the root cause of my depression and motivation problems is that I have felt I can’t be 100% happy unless I am 100% healthy. This is not true, but for me it has been a kind of motivator: happiness is the reward for achieving better health. I have caused myself more stress and made my life more difficult by not letting myself be happier. Don’t make the same mistake, forget the perfection and just allow yourself to enjoy unconditionally the feeling of happiness!

Happiness, quick introduction

To better understand happiness I suggest you check the following videos on TED.com:

I just love the TED, so much good stuff!

Making it easier to be happy

Many things can make it hard to feel happy. Some things are just so anti-happy that it seems they can’t coexist in the brain at the same time as happiness:

Physical and mental pain
Depression
Anxiety
Stress
…

There are two ways to increase your happiness when something prevents it: learn to be better at being happy or minimize the problems. Learning happiness is not impossible, but it may take some time and require constant effort to stay in the “happy loop”.

My preferred choice is the second one: minimizing any issues that seem to stand in the way:

Sometimes you can simply decide that a goal or dream isn’t that important after all (it may not be an easy decision, but you’ll get bonus happiness points if you can really commit to the decision)
It’s not always possible to get completely rid of a problem, but do what you can (If you can be just 1% happier the rest of your life it’s ok to spend quite many hours with dealing the problem and still get good payback)
Change focus away from the problem by introducing something new to your life (especially, do everything to not get obsessed with the problem, that will only make it worse)

Now, be happy!