If you aren’t happy now, you might never be and I know why.*
You are missing out on the pleasure of the little things in your daily life.
A joyful life is a series of small events, micro-moments, little tickles of happiness brought about by acute awareness of each moment that passes.
Many of us live the absolute opposite of that. We focus on what’s wrong, our pains and problems, the terrors, and big picture situations that we can’t control.
Seeking happiness is not a new idea, is it? You’ve been told how to do it a million times already in a wide variety of exhortations:
- be mindful of the present moment;
- the journey is the destination;
- keep a gratitude journal;
- change your mindset or attitude;
- savor the experience; (and dare I say it)
- live, laugh, love.
You’re aware of these the phrases and maybe you even repeat them, but they are too trite to have meaning and impact. They don’t hit home. How do you even do those things?
If being happy and joyful in daily life seems difficult and confusing, it’s not your fault. The world we live in keeps us focused on big aspirational goals and milestones. “I will be so happy when I get _________________.”
- to retirement;
- a vacation;
- married;
- a house;
- my book published;
- a day off;
- a new car;
- to the finals;
- to see my grandchildren
- past the next four years
…or fill in the blank with whatever motivates you and keeps you going.
So to find happiness in little things and greater joy in your life, you need to look at two factors where you are probably stuck:
- You set expectations of the end goal. You’ve made a movie in your mind of all the wonderful things that would happen when you reached your goal. You’d be happy! And then you get to there and those good feelings aren’t with you. Because…
- You didn’t build up the skill of happiness in your daily life.
Examine your expectations
Big goals are important to guide our life in a specific direction. But if that’s all you live for, you’ll easily find yourself impatient and aggravated every day. You’re not feeling happy because you aren’t at the point where you tell yourself you can be happy. You need to keep striving, keep focussed, keep moving forward. Sounds familiar, right?
When we do finally reach those anticipated events where you allow yourself to feel happy, there is a moment of elation! Triumph! Goal achieved! But soon enough you will discover that the happiness is gone because:
- Retirement is boring;
- the vacation spot is not idyllic;
- my spouse tells bad jokes;
- the house always needs cleaning;
- the grandchildren bicker;
- the big picture never changes much.
Life’s just as frustrating as it was before. You’re still not happy.
We all idealise a goal. You form specific images of what life will be like when you achieve your dream. That warm fuzzy picture in our minds keeps us moving toward the goal. It’s important to have a clear vision of your dream.
Picture a goal you have right now – something that will happen in a little while from now. Look carefully at that image in your mind. Do you know that it’s as much about your feelings as it is about the object of the dream? Those feelings that you envision and expect – happiness, content, self-worth – won’t spring out of thin air when you reach a goal.
You need to cultivate happiness, detach it from your goal, and feel joy in the daily life you live. Develop skill in feeling happy no matter what happens around you.
Practice being happy
Happiness is smaller than you think and it’s everywhere. It is in all the little things in every aspect of your life. You’ve got to practice being happy which requires an eye for detail and an awareness of what’s happening around you.
Just now, happiness flowed into my day when I glanced up from my screen and saw a hint of blue peeking through the clouds; when I caught a whiff of my husband’s cologne; and when I remembered that there is a piece of leftover garlic bread waiting for me in the fridge. It was about 20 seconds of my life, but three happy things happened during it. Am I blissed out? No. I am in a happier mood because of those little things.
So how do you start practicing happiness?
That list of trite phrases above is a good place to start, actually.
- Be mindful of the present moment. This is a critical practice point. What does being in the present moment feel like? It’s a glorious detachment from your mind’s worries, judgements, or emotions. It’s easy to experience.
1) Start by focussing on your five senses. What do you feel, hear, see, smell, and taste? Your senses are always in the present moment. Take note of all five and – bam – here you are in the now. All you had to do was pay attention and label what you experience in your senses.
2) Next be mindful (and proactive) by asking yourself if those five senses are in any way uncomfortable. What can you do to change that discomfort? Go do that thing and Ha! Now you have practiced bringing happiness to yourself.
At this present moment I am sitting in my chilly office. My fingers are stiff and my skin feels dry. I have a slight headache and I am thirsty. I can fix every problem if I go get a cup of coffee (and maybe that garlic bread) and have a shower. I tuned in to my senses, got into the present moment, found the source of my discomfort and made an action plan. That is my version of being in the present moment. - The journey is the destination. While this phrase is an oxymoron, it is trying to tell us that the process of getting to a goal is as important as the goal. Find happiness as you go along.
When Tod & I were traveling recently, we got stuck in some horrible traffic. Yes, we absolutely could have ranted that it took us 7 hours for a 5 hour trip. We did, a little, and then we enjoyed the extra time in the car to talk, listen to podcasts, have snacks. Because of the delays, we stopped for a delicious meal at a highway area we would have passed right by otherwise. - Keep a gratitude journal. There are many ways to do this – a notebook or sketchbook you add to regularly by noting something that sparked your gratitude; a “Today I was grateful for…” line in your daily planner or bullet journal; a folder of photos of people, things and moments you are happy about and thankful for. With enough practice, you will be able to internalise your sense of gratitude and happiness and the journalling will fall away.
One thing doesn’t work (for me, anyway) is a public version of gratitude journalling. When I put my gratitude online, I think too much about my audience and how they will react rather than the gratefulness I feel.
While I rarely journal my gratitude these days, I have many notebooks, sketchbooks and photo albums full of past gratitude practices. It is immensely helpful to journal gratitude in dark times, through grief, and when life is just too much. - Change your mindset or attitude. There’s a bit of “fake it til you make it” in this one. Is it possible that if you decide to be happy, then you will be?Yeah, maybe it is. but only if you are ready for that attitude change.
I have never been able to force myself to change my attitude, yet I have achieved a shift in perspective anyway. I realised that life is a series of interesting problems to solve and experiences to relish. It’s okay to feel some frustration as I work towards an end result, as long as I enjoy the steps along the way. I find happiness in my own actions and my mind changes as a result. It’s a cycle. Or perhaps I think that way because I am old. If so, what a great benefit of aging! - Savor the experience. It’s another phrase that asks us to be here, now, in the present moment. We all spent a lot of time off in distant digital lands, or engrossed in fictional places and stories. Make an intentional effort to leave those places and come here for whatever is on offer.
Sometimes I stop what I am doing to take a photo. I think I am capturing the moment, but I am also thinking about the reaction of people who see it, where I will share it, how I am going to title it. In those few seconds of snapping the pic and posting it to Instagram or wherever, I have broken my attention to the experience I am having. I cannot savor what I am documenting. - Live, laugh, love. I hate this phrase so much because of its overuse as interior decor in the past decade, but it is the simplest and most powerful phrase if you actually do it. Live fully in the present moment. Laugh and let your happiness overflow. Let love become a chain that connects happiness from you to someone else.
When I am having a good day, it’s because I am living, laughing and loving. My heart is open to joy. The more often I feel this way, the more likely I can feel this way again.
Happiness practice also requires shamelessness. In complicated current events, it can seem frivolous to be happy. Smiling through the end times is wrong, isn’t it? Hell, no!
A happier you is a key component to a happier world. Joy energises you. Practice being happy every day, then use its energy to reach your goals, whatever they are.
If you can let go of embarrassment and let your happiness show, then you spread happiness to others. A smile is contagious, as they say.
Prove me wrong. Please go be happy.
* It’s not only me who knows. The Stoics, Buddhists, Existentialists and a panoply of modern psychologists also preach about “the little things.” My thoughts draw a great deal on their writings.
