Choose To Be Happy!

For years now, my daughter’s typical response when my grandchildren start to whine about something has been, “Choose to be happy!” And indeed, that is sage advice for not only whiny children but also for each of us.

Choosing to be happy means that we refuse to justify being unhappy. Sure, there are lots of things we can use to justify being unhappy. Life can seem unfair. Things don’t always go as we hoped. Plans get derailed by circumstances beyond our control. Events sometimes take sudden and unexpected turns. People we were counting on let us down. The question is never whether these things happen, rather it is how we choose to respond to them.

Refusing to justify being unhappy doesn’t deny the unexpected setback happened or reject the reality of a serious problem, nor does it mean that we deny reality. What it does mean is that we face the situation squarely, do what we can about it and then rather than fretting or obsessing over it, we look for reasons to justify being happy.

These reasons might be found in the situation itself. As many of you know, one of my favorite stories has to do with Thomas Edison’s response to his laboratory burning down. According to witnesses, Edison, standing there watching the inferno said, “All our mistakes have been burned up.” Naturally, Edison wasn’t happy to see years of work destroyed. What I think he meant was that by having to start anew, they would not be relying on preconceived ideas or flawed data. He was happy to have the opportunity to begin again.

At times, the reason we find to be happy is outside the situation. By focusing on the good things in our lives we not only deflect unhappiness, we give ourselves a healthy dose of perspective. Several years ago I was helping a friend move some furniture. He had rented a truck which we carefully loaded, making sure the load was balanced. Unfortunately, we failed to properly tie down a heavy piece of furniture. The first time we made a turn the piece shifted to the left. This caused everything around it to also move. The result was that the entire load was now on the left side creating a dangerous imbalance.

Too often we allow ourselves to become so focused on difficulties that our mental load shifts. When this happens we find ourselves tilting heavily toward negativity and cynicism. Unless we rebalance our load we create the conditions for perpetual unhappiness, and a sense of futility.

Closely aligned with choosing to be happy is choosing your direction. A psychologist once told me that much of the unhappiness people experience comes from not having clearly defined goals. Now, he wasn’t talking about lofty goals like making a million dollars or driving a Porsche. As he explained it, most unhappy people just drifted through life and, as he put it, “when you drift through life you are at the mercy of everything that comes along, the result being they never seem to get anywhere.” Then he added, “When a person has a sense of direction, they are like a running back who keeps his feet moving after the first tackler hits him. By doing so, he is using what momentum he had to push forward for an extra yard or even break the tackle for a long run.”

Finally, choose to replace self defeating behavior with self-defining behavior. We all have some personality trait that is self defeating. Often these traits have become deeply ingrained and become the cause of unhappiness. We can replace them by putting the power of the “act as if” principle to work for you. William James, the father of modern psychology systemized this principle and demonstrated its life altering power in his work with patients. The “act as if” principle simply states that if you want to acquire a certain trait, act as if you already have it. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, but if practiced consistently you will find that the old self-defeating traits will be replaced by the traits you seek to possess.

So, choose to be happy! And have a great and profitable week!
Robert Hidde
bob@confidentliving.com