A Happiness Manual

One of the biggest problems with our ability to be happy is the lack of understanding that our happiness is a personal responsibility in two ways.  1st  You cannot rely on outside influences to determine whether or not you are happy, otherwise we would be continually swinging from extreme highs to extreme lows fully dependent on whether we get our way.  This is profound immaturity.  Think of a baby.  If he wants food, he cries and if his desire is not met, he will throw a fit.  If he wants a toy, whatever his desire, he will throw a fit if he does not get his way.  Seemingly, his life's purpose is to make his parents' lives miserable.  2nd We have a responsibility to be happy for the sake of others.  Consider what its like being around a moody person.  Their foul mood is a drag on the effectiveness of our efforts to be happy.  As Dennis Prager is fond of saying, "Your mood is like your breath.  You brush your teeth daily (aside from preventing them from rotting) and use mouthwash and breath mints so others don't have to endure a foul odor as you relate with them."  Similarly, a bad mood is unattractive and encourages others to find somebody with clean, fresh smelling breath to relate with.

We can observe in the people around us that there are many people in terrible circumstances who are happy in spite of those circumstances and there are many people in wonderful circumstances who are miserable in spite of them.  Obviously there are many people in wonderful circumstances who are happy and many people in terrible circumstances who are miserable and obviously we are not completely emotionally independent of our circumstances.  If I am physically or even verbally attacked, my happiness is affected negatively, but in the main, our condition of happiness is a decision rather than a result of circumstances. 

Who hasn't considered winning the lottery and assumed that would make them happy?  Yet the promotional TV program the lotto companies initiated when the lotto was first started here in California to increase their sales was canceled because the follow up stories were depressing.  Case after case of average people were made millionaires overnight and in 6 months or 6 years they were not only broke, but in deep debt and their extended families hated them and all their former friends we estranged from them and in many cases the recipients were in trouble with the law, all because of the money.  We read story after story of rich, famous and successful people committing suicide in their profound misery or overdosing on drugs trying to find some route to happiness that their fame, success and wealth did not accomplish.  So we can conclude that happiness is not determined by our circumstances.  It must be from within.  A happy poor person will be even happier as a rich person.  An unhappy poor person will be even unhappier as a rich person.  Why?  Because they were under the impression that the reason they were unhappy was because they could not have what they wanted.  When they got what they wanted, their joy was short lived until they realized the next thing they wanted but could not have.

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Given that happiness is from some source within us, we must necessarily assume responsibility for our own happiness.  A road block to happiness is observed in our ignorance of our own inner conditions.  If I have never considered my happiness in a practical way, how do I know if I have reason to be happy or even whether or not I am happy, it is simply a guess and that person who is dependent on the sensation of joy or excitement rather than the evaluation of their well being exists in a powerless constant state of dependence and/or victimhood.  Feeling powerless to control whether or not we're happy adds to the drag on your ability to acheive happiness.

In order to assess our emotional condition, let us first define happiness.  I will start by stating what it isn't.  First, happiness is not being excited.  Most of our youth and many adult

Designing a happy life entails finding purpose for your existence.  Devote your life to a great cause.  A family is a great cause.  You may not want kids when you're 12 or 16 but you certainly will when you reach 20 or 30.  Some adults may not realize this desire well into their 40's, but it will come.  So start planning for that goal as young as is possible for you.  A caveat here:  Natural desires can be overcome.  Some have decided at some point that they will devote their lives to some other great cause in which they find as much self worth and social value.  It is difficult for me to imagine anything which would beat the enriching of life that children bring, but some few people might find teaching or life saving work as fulfilling.  So, you can experience the value and self worth without producing children, but it requires every bit as much sacrifice and investment of time and effort as do children.  The point is, though you are required to expend great amounts of energy and have your patience tested way beyond its limits, value and worth are the rewards for the investment and sacrifice with its inherent risk.  One more thing, you can be devoted to more than one great cause.  It is not impossible to have a family and win championships or invent life saving devices.

Designing a happy life entails maintaining same sex friendships.  A man who has no same sex friendships is a man wrapped up in his own desires.  It is another sign of immaturity.  He is often unable to maintain those relationships because he is closed off, emotionally reclusive and therefore unable to get feedback on his behavior and thought pocesses.  Women, pay attention to this part of a man's makeup.  If a man is unable to demonstrate close relationships with another man, it is a foreboding sign that he is unable to relate to you emotionally or conversely, that he can only relate to the opposite sex.  Either way, his mental health is not sufficient to maintain good intimacy.  The same is true of women.  There are times when a spouse needs to disucss something with someone other than their spouse.  I could not take my struggles with attraction to a female coworker to my wife.  The news would be devastating to her, but the friend, if he is a friend can steer me right.  This is a critical aspect of healthy social constructs.  Obviously, you have to be concerned with the quality of the character of their friends.  Its no good that they are in relationships with people who encourage them to do drugs or alcohol, steal, lie, cheat, or are prone to violent behavior.

Designing a happy life entails expressing grattitude.  This is a topic of which it is difficult to express the importance.  Let's say your dad gives you a fancy car.  You are excited to have your first car and you are grateful to your dad for such a wonderful gift.  However, if he bought you a broken down bucket of bolts and worked with you since your 14th birthday to re-build it from the ground up, after all that work by you and he working together, you know the effort that went into that car and value it much more than the one that came off the showroom floor.  Though he put just as much effort into earning the money that bought the new car, you didn't see it.  All you saw was the shiny new car and a stern "Take care of it!" from him.  Whereas, with the car that was built from the ground sat in the garage for years and you saw his legs sticking out from underneath and you listened to his instruction as he taught you how to put it together.  The car's value has appreciated in your eyes.  Put another way, when you express grattitude, you increase the value of those with whom you have relationship.  You literally build a wealth of emotional value for someone by expressing grattitude to them.

Religion is one of those controversial topics, but in my mind, designing a happy life entails maintaining a relationship with God.  The traditions and social boundaries that religion constructs around an individual on a practical level, provide a structure for creating behavior patterns that promote healthy social relationships with society at large and more importantly, with God.  My personal experience in this relationship is such that I know God exists and has in His grace and mercy toward us, set these boundaries up for both, my personal well being and the well being of all of mankind.  More, He desires to be in relationship with me.  Talk about feeling valued and having worth, when I consider that Jesus the Maker of heaven and earth sacrificed His perfect relationship with the Father for even a moment so I could regain right standing with the Father....  It is in this relationship that I have had one of only two experiences with bliss or a 10 on the happiness scale.  The Bible refers to this experience as "Joy inexpressable." 1st Peter 1:8.  It is accomplished by knowing Him, (studying His Word to us to know what He tells us about Himself) believing in Him, loving Him, submitting to His will, likening yourself to a bride submitted to her husband voluntarily and offering Him the praise He is due.  I delight in His presence, His nearness to me and desire for me.  The word 'worship' is difficult to translate into English, but the concept is to 'kiss toward.'  Essentially, it means to display affection toward God.

I have not yet addressed the issue of overcoming circumstances.  For there are certainly circumstances for which we should grieve.  I could not expect anybody to be eternally at the state of joy unless they never again experienced loss and suffering and continually experienced an improving life.  Just slightly impossible.  Grieving is a necessary part of our mental health.  We don't have to lose a loved one to require grieving either.  The death of a dream would necessitate a grieving process.  So, what is that point where we need to process losses and go through the grief cycle?  I have set my expectations to such a low state that insults are ineffective.  It would take a physical attack or similar to cause me to experience a sense of loss great enough to send me into the cycle of grief processing.  I might have to adjust that setting if the insults become injurious to my reputation, but thus far this is working pretty well.

A caller into the Dennis Prager show related that she had been raped at college and for two years carried a burden of victimhood.  She avoided telling her father of the attack fearing, since he was a Marine, that he'd go kill the attacker.  She was surprised that his fatherly love empowered him to give her this advice.  "Sweetheart, you have a choice.  This can be a fork in the road or this can be a bump in the road."  In other words, you can allow this experience to change your life or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go on living the life you choose.  Armed with that information, she'd chosen to go back to making her own decisions, not based on fear, but based on her knowledge that the possibility for attacks exist and to use common sense, but to live the life that pleased her, to continue on the path she'd been on before the attack.  You may experience bumps in the road, sometimes very serious bumps, bumps big enough to overturn your life, but it is up to you if those bumps change your direction.

I was raised in a very disturbed and turbulent home, so I sought solitude early in life.  I established behavior patterns and learned to enjoy being alone.  With my propensity toward solitude coupled with high expectations of Miss Right, I too have had difficulty establishing long term eros relationships.  I married much later than most and that marriage failed after 3 years partly due to these facts.  So, I can certainly identify with that single mother who authored the article I referred to earlier.  Aside from siblings and nephews and nieces and more distant family and a few close friends, I am perfectly contented, even joyful to live this single life and dedicate it to writing these blogs to pass my experience down to the next generation.  I would have preferred to raise my own kids to teach these things to, but it is my hope some youth read this and take it to heart for the enrichment of their lives to be as full and complete as they can possibly make them.  These are the basics of judging your own well being to make that consistent enrichment, joy and happiness possible.  Welcome to the world of self empowerment.

Summary
To acheive a high, stable level of happiness in no order of importance;

keep expectations low
have a near impossible dream or dreams and strive to acheive them
take or reinitiate a hobby
maintain a life purpose
maintian open and honest friendships
start and regularly update a grattitude journal
know and trust God

Now, go out and use your God given responsibility to judge people by the quality of their character, but not by their appearance.