Are happiness days a good idea?

I think setting aside a day to contemplate happiness is worthwhile, but with a caveat.

The pursuit of happiness is important. But… pursuing happiness doesn’t lead to happiness. What happens is people mistake pleasure for happiness, pursue pleasure and then get themselves into trouble.  Additionally, the pursuit of happiness as a goal, when you don’t end up feeling happy, can cause a lot of feelings of inadequacy.

You don’t experience happiness by seeking it. Happiness is something you experience in in hindsight: when you think about things. Mostly, we experience it when we feel like we are getting the business of living right. Helping others is one of the best ways to become happy. When you extend yourself to others in compassion, actively by doing things to help them, you are likely to experience happiness as a result. It feels really good and you feel good about yourself.

The Humanist approach to happiness is to focus on being a good person & doing good in the world. Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life, that without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity. By doing so, we become happy.

There is a formula to this. To be happy we need to be free. To be free, we need to have control. Freedom (and lack of stress) is a result of the amount of control you exercise over your life. In order to exercise control, you have to be responsible enough to make good decisions that benefit yourself and others. Your freedom cannot come at the expense of others.

For this reason, we Humanists focus A LOT on how to make good decisions. After all, you have to live with the consequences of your actions. The more you can make good decisions about how to act, the more control you have over your life and the more freedom and happiness you will experience. The effect is cumulative. Every good decision you make makes your life a little easier, a little less stressful and a little bit better. Magnify that effect over the myriad of decisions you make daily. Regarding your food choices or entertainment choices, and who you hang out with and whether you drive while drunk or not. And those little decisions add up to either increased levels of satisfaction in life or decreased levels of satisfaction.

This is why a commitment to self education is so important. You can’t make good decisions if your information is bad.

To recap. If you want to be happy, commit to living life fully (with all of its ups and downs). Love other people. And leave the world a better place. You best accomplish that by actively practicing compassion for yourself and others and through making good informed decisions.

To learn more - check out my book: The Humanist Approach to Happiness

How to seek happiness

Question: 

Do you actively seek to be happy in your life (by practicing a certain behavior) or just flow with it?

Answer:

It's not that I seek happiness. It's more that I value being happy and so I integrate that value into my decision making process. As a result, I am more likely to choose behaviors that contribute to happiness (myself and others).

For me, happiness is a byproduct of good decision making and ethical behavior.   It's not something I seek. I seek to do and to be good. Happiness results from that.

Additionally, having happiness as a value - as opposed to a desire -  helps me in those instances when I am faced with an Epicurean dilemma. Do I accept short term pain for long term gain?  Do I reject short term happiness if it will cause long term pain? If I value happiness, yes I do.  If I seek happiness, I do not.

I think if you are seeking happiness, you are going to end up unhappy and unsatisfied.  Going with the flow isn't a good option either. Happiness is important. But it is something to be valued, rather than desired.

What am I thankful for?

What I am thankful and grateful for Thanksgiving 2014

This has been a tough year for me. Sure, lots of good things happened, but lots of terrifying things did too.  I was hospitalized. My husband had health problems. We struggled financially and have come through it alive and in fairly good shape.

So – what am I thankful for.

My husband for being my rock and helping me when I need it. He picks up my slack when I can’t do things as I pick up the slack for him. Ours is a true partnership in the best sense of the word. I don’t know what I would do without him.

I’m also grateful for my son. We almost didn't have a child, so it’s still a big deal we have him. And despite all the difficulties of being a parent, I really do enjoy it. There are no other people I want to spend time with as much as I want to spend time with my husband and son.

My family and my inlaws. I am really lucky to have wonderful people in my life. People I can discuss politics with and personal problems with and get great advice. I have some REALLY smart people in my family and I am glad that technology lets me talk to them regularly.

I am glad that I live when I do so that our health problems didn't kill us. Technology, doctors, nurses, etc – everything that goes into modern health care is wonderful and lifesaving. I would not be here if someone hadn't figured out how to do a cat scan or laproscopic surgery.

Television and the internet. I am addicted to Bollywood movies and thanks to things like Netflix and my TV – I can see a world full of movies in my living room with my feet up nursing a broken toe while writing this blog. And this makes me very happy.

I love my crockpot and the fact my mother in law gifted it to me. It has made cooking for my family so much easier.

I love Pinterest. Tonight’s dinner was a crockpot recipe I found on Pinterest and – again, there’s the internet and crowd intelligence working well for my personal benefit. So to the people who post recipes etc – thank you. Thank you to the geeks who created the site and the people who created and maintain an open internet for me to use.

Science. At the moment, my son and his friends are raising tadpoles in a tank on my porch. It’s a porch I like sitting on when it rains. I like looking out in my yard at night under the moonlight – with the frogs chirping. As I sit and enjoy nature, I am reminded about all we know about nature because we figured out a way to objectively search for the truth through a methodology known as science.  And it is this search for knowledge that has created all the things that make my current life so wonderful – and of course science helped enable the technology that saved my life.

Mostly, I’m just thankful that I am alive to experience life. The good and the bad. And I’m thankful that you, who are reading this, find value enough in my writing to stick with me and continue reading my thoughts and ideas as crazy as they sometimes are.

I hope you are as grateful and thankful to be alive as I am.

A Guide to Happiness

The search for happiness is a lot like the search for the Holy Grail. We don’t even know what exactly it is we are looking for.

I realize I’m probably the last person to lecture on why seeking happiness is a silly idea. After all, I wrote a book called, The Humanist Approach to Happiness.  Check it out – it’s a good book and your purchase of it will make me, very happy.

Anyway, it seems to me that a big part of the reason people struggle with being happy is because they don’t recognize it when they experience it.  Is happiness the state of being happy?  Is it a state of contented bliss? Can you be happy even when you are sad?  Is it a feeling of pleasure? Or something different?

Because we don’t really know exactly what happiness is, our search for it is elusive.  And this search prevents us from being happy and experiencing bliss.

I think my son has it right. Today he told me. Life is pretty good.  I said, I agreed because it sure beats the alternative. And that is how you find happiness.

Don’t look for it. Appreciate the fact you are alive, despite the odds, despite the problems, you are alive and that sure beats the alternative.  What more exactly were you hoping for?  Life is filled with pleasure and pain. Sadness and joy.

To me, happiness isn’t a feeling, it’s an experience of contentedness and to experience that requires a little bit of reflection, that despite it all, life is pretty good. I don’t need to experience utmost bliss all the time to be happy. I just have to be alive so I can experience bliss when I am lucky enough to experience it.

How do you define happiness?

Being Beautifully Human

Tips from Self Help Gurus that resonate with me as a Humanist

Marc and Angel – they have a self-help blog that apparently has 102k readers.  Yeah – I’m a bit jealous. Anyway – they had a post – 12 rules for being beautifully human. And I loved it (http://www.marcandangel.com/2014/01/01/12-rules-for-being-beautifully-human/)   

Here is their list – for those of you too lazy to click through – you know who you are. Just be aware that they actually explain the details of all these rules and the nuance of why they included them and why they are important and why they work. Anyway – here are the rules – without the nuance.

1.  Live one day at a time.

2.  Be OK with not being OK all the time.

3.  Earn the best days of your life.

4.  When your intuition begs you to listen, listen.

5.  Look within for the answers you seek.

6.  Dare to challenge the status quo.

7.  Work hard when hard work is required.

8.  Appreciate your blessings.

9.  Use your voice to support the truth.

10.  Practice kindness with an open mind.

11.  Nurture your important relationships.

12.  Let life guide you.