Happiness is a Handful of Smoke

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to get happy and stay happy?? Ever feel like you’re the only one who can’t seem to hold on to it?? You’re not alone.? Happiness is a handful of smoke.?

Fortunately, there is something better, something tenable that you can lean on in both good times and bad.? An ancient concept with a modern twist, which I call “enhanced equanimity,” might point the way toward a more sustainable balance.

Over a half century ago, in the sweltering jungle of northeast Thailand, a renowned monk named Ajahn Chah offered a simple but profound analogy about happiness that remains as relevant today as it was back then:

“You can compare [happiness] to a snake.? The head of the snake is unhappiness.? The tail of the snake is happiness.? The head of the snake is really dangerous.? It has poisonous fangs.? If you touch it, the snake will bite you straight away.? But never mind the head.? Even if you go and hold onto the tail, it’ll turn around and bite you just the same.”?

In other words, even when we find happiness, it’s impossible to hold onto it.? Happiness contains within it the very seeds of its own destruction.? The moment we’re finally content, we start to worry.? Will it last?? What will happen if we lose it?? How can we hold on to it just a bit longer?? But that clinging causes the very thing we fear, and, just like that, our happiness is gone.? As Ajahn Chah put it in extending his metaphor:

“When we get the things we like—such as wealth, prestige, praise, or happiness—we become pleased as a result.? But the mind still harbors some uneasiness because we’re afraid of losing it.? That very fear isn’t a peaceful state.? Later on, we may actually lose that thing and then we really suffer…? It’s just the same as grabbing the snake’s tail.? If you don’t let go, it’ll bite.”

Happiness is a volatile, inherently unstable compound.? The problem is we don’t realize it.? We think that we’re different or that this time is different.? And the moment we’ve lost it—if we were ever able to achieve it in the first place—we’re back where we started.? The cycle repeats over and over again, and we fault ourselves, our loved ones, or the world around us.

Take the $11 billion cottage industry that has emerged from self-help books, what’s sometimes referred to as the “happiness-industrial complex.”? Do you know anyone who has purchased only one single self-help book?? Ever wonder why you have to keep buying book after book after book?? It’s like a drug.? You can get a temporary boost from each hit, but then you have to go back to the dealer for another.? Sometimes, you feel worse than before you started.

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Fear not: There’s an antidote to the snake bite.?

The cure for the happiness-unhappiness doom loop comes in the form of equanimity, taking the good and the bad in stride with equal poise. ?At a high level, it’s akin to surfing the waves of life rather than getting tossed around by them.?

Naturally, it’s easier said than done and takes lots of practice.? However, once you get the hang of it, you can begin to handle whatever life throws at you with grace.?

One key here is realizing another ancient truth: impermanence.? When Suzuki Roshi, who brought Zen to the US in the 1960s, was once asked to describe Buddhism in two words, he replied, “Everything changes.”? Life got you down?? This too shall pass.? Feeling on top of the world?? Look out below.? No matter who we are or what we do, nothing stays the same for long.

So when happiness crosses our path, we pause to experience it and then let it keep going.? The same with unhappiness.? In that way, we don’t get bitten by either.

Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and secular philosophies such as Stoicism also praise the virtue of equanimity each through their own cultural lens.?The hidden secret to living life with ease is neither hidden nor a secret.

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To be clear, equanimity is not synonymous with apathy or indifference. ?Critics of equanimity in general, or Buddhism and Stoicism in particular, often say that they don’t want to become numb to life’s vicissitudes just to avoid its perils.? However, that’s not the true meaning of equanimity.? The idea is not to stop feeling life’s ups and downs.? Rather, it’s to feel them fully and then let them go.? It’s in the letting go that one finds liberation.

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At risk of trying to augment a philosophy that’s already stood the test of time, I believe there may be a way to further improve the practice, which I call “enhanced equanimity.”?

The idea is inspired by the work of Nobel-prize winner, Daniel Kahneman.? An aspect of his research, called “prospect theory,” showed that the magnitude people’s unhappiness from misfortune was roughly twice as great as their happiness from good fortune.? Or to quote the famous baseball coach, Sparky Anderson, “losing feels twice as bad as winning feels good.”

In pursuit of equanimity, it then stands to reason that weathering the lows will be twice as hard as letting go of the highs.? There are only two ways to compensate for this phenomenon.? First, we can strive to not get bogged down in life’s difficulties.? Nothing new there.? Second, we can try to really enjoy life’s good moments.? That’s something most of us don’t pay as much attention to.?

The everyday experience of parking our car illustrates the point.? When we can’t find a spot, circling and circling only to have to park blocks away before sprinting to our destination, it feels horrible.? Of course, we can do our best to manage through the bad feelings.? But what about the opposite?? When we find the perfect spot right outside the place we’re going, can we practice feeling twice as happy about our good fortune? ?Can we feel as good about the good spot as we feel bad about the bad spot?

By magnifying the positive feeling of life’s wins, we can more effectively offset its losses and find balance between the two.? We get the good and the bad feelings into equal proportion, feel them in full, let them go as quickly as possible, and repeat until it becomes effortless.

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We can’t stop a snake from biting all together, but we can become snake charmers.