How to Be Happy

Sometimes I hear people say that happiness is a choice. Put this simplistically, it sounds like you just have to think, Oh, yeah. I'm going to be happy right now. Blink. Now, I'm happy. If I just smile, then I'll be happy. Happy, happy, happy. Put like this, it sounds like this kind of happiness is a willful blindness to the sadness and horror of real life. If we could all just be little robots and look in the right direction, we could be happy. But if you don't want to do that, you're doomed to sadness.

A few years ago, when I was deep in a depression, I remember my husband saying to me that he wished I was as happy at home as I was when we went out. This made me SO angry. I thought what he meant was that he wanted me to fake being happy all the time, which was what I did when I was in public. I was EXCELLENT at faking being happy, it turns out. Almost no one could tell that I wasn't happy. A few people who really knew what was going on did, but I guess I've spent most of my life faking a lot of social interactions and mostly other people don't look beyond the surface. They all thought that I was doing so great. I was an example to them, it seemed, of how to move on from a terrible tragedy. Ha!

The idea that I should do this faking all the time, however, was the most horrifying thing I could imagine. First of all, it took enormous effort. I would spend hours in advance, psyching myself up and then planning out different scenarios that might unfold, so that I could passably fake through them. Worse than that, though, was the sense that no one knew who I really was, that I was wearing this shell over my real self and that other people could not penetrate it, did not want to penetrate it to see the real hurting person inside. They WANTED me to be happy so that they didn't have to deal with my pain. It was simply easier for them not to see it or deal with it or feel bad about it or wonder if at some point they might feel that same kind of pain. Almost every social interaction I had was poisoned by this pretense of happiness, because I resented--and then hated--the ease with which other people seemed to accept this persona. I began to think of myself as a kind of robot of happiness and other people were also robots. All human interaction began to feel fake to me. I could see the formulas in it all, and I was very distanced from it.

It took me a long time to come to my own more real happiness. I realize now that when my husband said he wished I was happy at home as I was when we went out, he didn't mean he wanted me to fake being happy all the time. He wanted me to actually BE happy all the time. But figuring out what actually made me happy and then taking the steps to hold tight to the happiness, to allow myself to insist on being happy, and then to stop feeling guilty when I was happy--that took a lot of hard work. I get it now when people say that happiness is a choice. They don't mean the kind of choice where it just blinks on. They mean choosing to reach for the happiness, and choosing to hold it tight to your heart and not let it be taken away.

Happiness for me turns out to mean spending time watching TV with my kids, going on long walks with my husband, racing in triathlon, writing things that are just for me, going out to lunch with friends, taking myself out to lunch if I feel like it for no reason at all, celebrating every tiny little success either with an ice cream cone or a dinner out, saying no to events that have made me feel bad in the past, turning off the news, giving myself permission to fail, watching youtube videos, rewatching obsessively at times movies that I love, going to church on my own terms, asking for things that I actually want and making sure I get them instead of gifts I don't want, telling people around me what I need in blunt terms, physical embraces or simple touches from family members, taking a bath instead of a shower, getting the flavor of ice cream or gatorade or gu that I want, making the dinner I want sometimes even if no one else likes it, going shopping for something trivial and silly that I want anyway, and lots of other things.

The process of figuring out what makes you happy is a long one. I don't keep a happiness journal per se, but I can see one might be useful. For me, I make a list at the end of the day of three things that made me happy. This helps me remember the things that really matter to me. I am constantly surprised when I make this list of the things that don't end up on the list and the things that do. I thought that cleaning and shopping would never be there, but everyone once in a while, I really take pleasure in those tasks. I thought that writing would always be on the list, but somedays it's a drag and other days a revelation. My family is almost always on the list.

I'm revisiting this topic today because of a TED talk I saw here by Jane McGonigal, a gamer:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life.html

By the way, I absolutely agree with her frustration over the cultural prejudice that games are a waste of time. This language is almost identical to the language against book reading in the late 1700s when it became popular as books became priced such that everyone could own one.

Another interesting link is this list of Top 5 regrets of the dying, which McGonigal says are exactly opposite of the 5 realizations of those who experience post-traumatic growth. Those 5 are:

1. My priorities have changed--I'm not afraid to do what makes me happy.
2. I feel closer to my friends and family.
3. I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.
4. I have a new sense of meaning and purpose.
5. I am better able to focus on my goals and dreams.

For a long time, I felt frustrated when people would talk about how a tragedy was a gift, that certain kinds of growth can only come through horror. I'm not certain I am there yet. I think growth can come in many different ways, and given the choice, any moment of any day, I would go back and change the tragedy and give up everything I learned from it to not go through what I did. I also think that the pressure of those around someone who has gone through a tragedy to be over it and learn those lessons is enormous and often oppressive. The lessons don't come to you. Sometimes they feel forced on you, and not in a pleasant way.

So if you are going through a tragedy and haven't come to any lessons yet, don't feel rushed to get there. I think the reason that the regrets of the dying and the lessons of those who come out past a trauma are the same is because you do die. You've been through death and it takes a long, long time to be alive again. Give yourself that time. As I said, the process of figuring out how to be happy isn't a simple or easy or fast one. It's a survival mechanism, in a way. If you're going to have to be alive, you're going to have to figure out a way that it isn't pure misery. It feels sometimes like this is an added burden that you don't want. Believe me, I get it. Don't take up that burden until you are ready. But when you are ready, look around for what you really want and insist on it. Insist to yourself and insist to others on the goal of happiness. And then figure out how to get there.