How to be happy
Table of Contents
What is happiness?
For a really long time, I misunderstood what happiness was. This seems an odd confession to make. How could I misunderstand what it feels like to be happy? Where was my confusion? Why couldn’t I figure out one of the most obvious emotions humans have?
I blame Coca Cola…. I grew up in England in the 1970s when colour television was still a rare item to have in the home. Every colourful frame playing out of the wooden TV cabinet was pure magic and there was nothing more magical than the Coca Cola commercials.
Everybody was having the time of their lives in the Coca Cola universe. Beautiful people were having enormous amounts of fun on a hot and sunny day – laughing and playing together, spraying each other with water from hoses, quenching their thirst from ice cold coke bottles glistening with water droplets. To top it all off, everyone was singing “I’d like to teach the world to sing (in perfect harmony)” and joy and happiness spread across the earth and it was all thanks to Coca Cola.
It was clear to me – this is what happiness was, and I saw the same themes again and again in other commercials and in society around me. To be happy, meant to be laughing a lot, throwing your head back in joy, usually around groups of people who were cracking each other up with their humour and wit.
Was my happy the wrong kind of happy?
This wasn’t my experience. I definitely had happy moments, but they didn’t seem to come close to the excited happiness I saw everywhere else. I watched people get overly excited when they greeted each other, when they opened a gift, or they roared with laughter at a joke. Happiness seemed to be way over the top to me and it bothered me that my version wasn’t this exuberant and noisy.
This version of happiness is even more prevalent these days, as seen all over social media. There is endless content showing excitedly happy people and a common thought can be “I want whatever they are on”.
I’ve had excitedly happy moments too. I’ve had experiences of being overwhelmed with joy and happiness, but my happy is something much more “peaceful”, perhaps even contentment. I thought for a long time this was wrong or a lower level of happiness and I should work out how to increase the amplitude, turn it up to excited happy.
My understanding of happiness was misguided and there was nothing wrong with how I was experiencing happiness. How can there be anything wrong with what I experience? By definition – it’s “my experience”, it’s what is happening to me, right here, right now. Whatever is happening to me, whatever my experience is, cannot be wrong.
What goes up – must come down
The consequence of the “happy” I learnt from Coke commercials and society around me is that it gives you a high. It makes me you feel good and so we seek this happy state. The problem with every high is in its very definition – it’s “high”. Higher than your normal state. It’s the difference between the high and your normal that makes it stand out. When the “high” has passed, as all things do, you feel low. If I have been excitedly happy and really gone above my normal baseline, I can feel really low. My low can be lower than my normal baseline and I now need to find something to make me happy again.
This is a poor system. If I had designed this happiness system in humans, I’d be very disappointed at what I done. Looking at this from an engineering point of view – putting my computer science hat on, I want a system that filters the highs and lows, that could deliver “happy” at a consistent rate and the good news is – this is within the capabilities of the human operating system. You just need to know how to access it.
Those ancient humans were smart
Luckily, humans have been thinking about happiness for a long time and have found solutions so we don’t have to. The teachings of Buddhism all revolve around how to be happy, to be free of suffering and to reach enlightenment. The same is true of non-duality teachings, such as those taught by Rupert Spira who has removed all the religion and dogma from the Hindu Advaita Vedanta. In the West there is Stoicism, which arose in Ancient Greece ~2500 years ago and shares much in common with the previous two because it recognises the mind as the source of happiness or suffering.
what Buddhism says about happiness
According to Buddhism – happiness comes from a peaceful mind. The excitable type of happiness we see in the Coke commercials is also happiness, but it’s seen as a temporary state, existing in an excitable mind and is not a state to strive for. Having our mind go up and down is not a peaceful state. Seeking happiness to lift our state is not peaceful. Doing things to make us happy, like drinking alcohol, eating chocolate etc is not a peaceful state – although it can bring happiness temporarily.
Buddhists aim for “the middle way”, where you are in a state of peace, contentment and happiness without the up and down fluctuations. Meditating regularly can help achieve this. Meditation is training for the mind. If you’re a boxer, you will not get in the ring with an opponent straight away. You’re going to train – when it’s safe, when everything is controlled. Meditation is the training you need to remain peaceful during your day.
Happiness is in your mind, it’s not caused by things that you do
Buddhism, non-duality and stoicism all agree that taking control of your mind should be the primary activity in your life. It’s how we react to “life” that determines how we feel, rather than what happens to us. e.g. If the dog barks in the middle of the night – I can choose to be annoyed by it, or I can choose not to be.
I can tell myself an angry story about being woken up by the dog and how annoying it is, or I can tell myself a story about being thankful that the dog is protecting the house. Even better, I can develop a mind that is not disturbed by the dog barking and doesn’t require a story to calm it, as it has remained calm.
I’ve been meditating daily for a while and my mind is in a much more peaceful state. I write after I meditate, to understand more deeply any insights that came to me during meditation and this has deepened the peace within my mind. Writing this blog extends the practice and helps my overall peace of mind.
Happiness comes from saying “yes” to experience
In Buddhist and non-duality philosophy – our natural state is one of happiness or peace. We shouldn’t think of happiness as a state we are trying to attain. Even the quest for enlightenment is not a quest at all. We are already enlightened – we just don’t realise it. A happy mind is analogous to a clear blue sky. The sky always remains a clear blue, even when clouds are covering it. Likewise, the mind is always at peace, even though our thoughts or delusions are moving through it. A negative thought is just like a dark cloud moving across the blue sky.
If our mind’s natural state is happiness, then all we need to do is to stop the clouds from covering it. We need to remove the thoughts, beliefs and delusions that are stopping our natural state from shining through. As Carl Jung is quoted as saying, “what you resist, persists” or as Rupert Spira says:
How does saying ‘yes’ work?
When we are doing something we like, we have no resistance to it – life is good. Unhappiness occurs when we don’t like or resist the current situation we are in. I can do the same activity and have completely different (happy & unhappy) experiences doing it. It all depends on my mind.
e.g. I can do the washing up and can be thrilled about it. I can think how good it is to clean everything, how much fun it is to be washing up with the kids, playing around, scooping soap suds onto their heads.
Alternatively, I can be angry at washing up. I don’t want to do it. The kids are supposedly helping, but they are just making it worse and it’s another thing I will have to clean up.
The activity (washing up) is the same, but the outcome in my mind is very different. In the second example, I don’t want to wash up, I’m saying ‘no’ to what is happening to me. I’m saying “I don’t want this to happen – I want something else to happen”. But – washing up is happening. This is the event in my life right now and by resisting it, I’m making it worse. I’m not only making myself unhappy by resisting it, but I’m missing the opportunity to be happy whilst doing it.
It’s my choice whether I say “yes” or “no” and it’s therefore my choice whether or not I choose to be happy.
The practice of meditation and writing about it – brings peace
How does my practice of meditation and writing about it work? In my experience – it works in two ways:
- Sometimes – external events do not bother me at all. I’m not triggered. I don’t have any negative reaction and my mind remains at peace.
- Sometimes – external events affect me, but I can bring my mind back to peace in a short period of time.
An example of each:
1. Camping in peace
Last weekend we went camping on a property near Forster, NSW. The site was on several acres of someone’s home, so we were essentially camping with other strangers in the owner’s back garden. It was a good setup with toilets, showers, fire pits and farm animals to pet.
On arrival, we met the owner of the site. They seemed to take an instant dislike to me and made it very clear what we could and could not do. A key selling point for the site was that it was also a petting zoo. The kids asked whether they could pat the horse and the owner made a point of showing us the electric wire that ran around the property and around the fence the horse was in. They didn’t say “no”, but the implication was clear “you can pat the horse, but the fence is electrified…”
The interaction with the owner lasted about 10 minutes, and the overriding feeling I got from them was anger. Everything they explained about the property was tinged with anger and frustration. The subtext I picked up on was “this is my home. I don’t want you or these others strangers camping in my garden, but this is how I earn money. I don’t enjoy having my home invaded. I don’t enjoy having people coming here, making a mess, disrespecting my space.” We had further interactions with the owner during our 2 day stay and if anything – they were angrier than on the first meeting.
It would have been so easy to take offence at their behaviour. There were many things that were said that I could have taken as personal insults and been boiling with anger myself. I didn’t take offense though. I didn’t become angry. I didn’t respond to them angrily and during the whole time – my mind was peaceful. Not only was my mind peaceful, but I could think compassionately about the owner. I thought about how much they were suffering and how awful it must be for them to have so much pain and anger in their mind, day after day, ignited again and again by each new arrival at their home.
This was a real world example, proving to me the benefit of my meditation and writing practice. It wasn’t just theory – it works! There is no way I wouldn’t have taken offense if I hadn’t been doing this practice.
2. everybody needs good Neighbours
Back at home – It was a warm day, the washing was out on the line and had been dry for a couple of hours. I looked out the back window and noticed fountains of water coming over the fence from our neighbours. They had their watering system on and it was spraying half way across our back lawn – soaking our outdoor furniture and our previously dry washing. There was no-one around in the neighbour’s garden and so I went to the front door to let them know. The front door was open but nobody came to answer to the doorbell and I left frustrated.
Walking back to my house, I noticed a heaviness in my chest that hadn’t been there before. I tuned into my internal dialogue and paid attention to the story I was telling myself about how inconsiderate the neighbours were, how the washing would now take hours to dry and maybe they had done this intentionally?
This last thought caught my attention more than the others and it signalled to me how ludicrous an idea it was. Why would they soak our washing intentionally? They have done nothing like that before and I didn’t believe they would do such a thing. I didn’t want to be frustrated, upset, or angry. My intention is to be in as happy and peaceful a state as possible and so I spent a few moments challenging the rest of the story I had been telling myself, as it was clearly untrue. The story crumbled away, the heavy sensation in my chest lifted and my peace was restored.
I returned to the house and was in the back garden when the neighbour called to me over the fence and apologised. She had been in the shower when I called and she didn’t realise the watering system was running amok. Something was clearly wrong with it, and she was very sorry.
How to be happy – key points
- Happiness exists in the mind. To be happy – I need to work on my mind.
- Lasting happiness cannot be found in external things. I can do something that makes me happy (e.g. eat a beautiful meal), but it won’t last.
- To be happy, I have to say “yes” to my experience
- Happiness is a choice. If I choose to say “no” to experience, I choose unhappiness.
- I’ve proven to myself that meditating regularly keeps my mind at peace in situations i would otherwise be angry at
- I’ve proven that writing and thinking deeply about my meditations and my spiritual path deepen the peace my mind feels