My Secret to Happiness
10 has been my favorite number since I was 9. Many people don't have favorite numbers. It is a shame, but many people don't have favorite numbers. They are great, underrated even. They take away difficult decisions for you. You know where to place your money on a roulette wheel, or if you should take odds or evens. Or maybe I'm just weird. Most likely I'm just weird.
10 isn't my key to happiness. It is just a tool. Most things in life are just tools; money, cars, computers. It took me a long time to find out what my secret to happiness really was. Then even longer to get started on being happy. For a while I built a life that was supposed to make me happy, but I realized I was using my tools wrong.
Happiness is a vague, incredibly ambiguous and personal term. It is also amorphous, like that blob from the 1958 Steve McQueen movie. Or maybe it is like the Supreme Court's definition of pornography- "I'll know it when I see it." However you define it, it is most likely the answer when you ask someone what they want in life. In some way, shape or form, it comes back to happiness.
The weird part is that this is something we are all striving for, but rarely ever define. Especially with baby boomer parents breathing down our necks equating happiness with security. Teachers, guidance counselors, peers telling you that you need to follow this path or that to get a job that will make you lots of money so you can be happy. Or to get into this career so you can put in your time, make enough money and retire and be happy.
These choices have always left me wanting. Yet I followed along like a good little lemming. Get good grades to get into a good university to get a good job after college. I marched lock-step towards a career, lifestyle and Then somehow broke through and didn't follow along... for a year. Then I hopped back into the stream of lemmings flinging themselves off the cliff.
Why? How? Fear mostly. Fear of what I could become. What I could do. Fear of success. Fear of the hard work that a life-altering decision would require. Because it is too goddamn easy to be a lemming and sometimes your willpower cracks.
This doesn't sound like I am happy. Well, thats a vague, ambiguous and amorphous term- weren't you paying attention!?! What I lost in the stream of following is defining happiness. So often we work on things that don't make us happy, so we equate work, any and all work, with unhappiness. We sneer at the lucky few who have a job they love, for a moment believe it could be us, then justify why that could never be and get back in line marching towards the cliff.
In my experience, happiness is not a destination. It is something to build into your life. If you are looking for a new pair of jeans, and you try on a pair that doesn't fit. Do you stop looking and just buy them anyway? Of course not! Now, if you were buying a pair of jeans to wear for the next forty years of your life, how many would you try on? What amount of effort would go into finding that pair? More effort than you put into whatever job you have fallen into now? Whatever major you have stumbled upon because the requirements are easier or won't make you take a summer class? This is the problem with happiness. We are too quick to compromise and sell it off. To delay its intended arrival. To push it off like it is a destination and not a part of your everyday life.
What makes you happy? Live music? Seeing movies in the theater? Drinking craft beers? Those are some things I like, but what about you? How often do you do those things that make you happy? What about larger goals and experiences that you may have that will make you happy? Spend three months traveling Oceania? Write a book? Learn another language?
10. Finally, this blog post comes back to where it started. I need you to make a list of ten. Or 20 or 13. Whatever your favorite number is, of things you want to do. Things you have said, "man I wish I could do that." If you can't think of 10 right away, that's ok. Take a week or two and catch yourself every time you say "I wish". It need not be so melodramatic as a "bucket list" or 10 things you want to do before you die. Just make a list of things you had always said you wished.
Then it really is as simple as setting about crossing them off. You will start to see the things in your life as the tools that they are. Start researching and processing what it would actually take to achieve these goals. Seeing if your life, as currently constituted, is in line with these goals, then correct course as needed.
French author and icon Antoine de Saint-Exupery once famously said, "A goal without a plan is just a wish." When I first read this quote, it deeply resonated with me. It was the push I needed to take the bold steps to cross off the harder, larger, more life altering things on my list. I was saying "I wish" too much, and doing too little. I took a big step, and crossed off a ton from my list. In fact, I have crafted a new one and am now working on it. It makes me happy both doing what is on my list and working towards it.
As you progress through the list, you will find that the happiness you receive is from the progress that you make as well as the experiences you are able to have.
Or not. This is my experience. It has worked for me and has left me with great memories, a deeper perspective and a higher level of compassion. Try a list. What is the worst that could happen? You learn about yourself and have a great story to tell? You realize the differences between your dreams and your goals? I wish...