Stop Connecting Your Happiness with What You Haven't Accomplished
By: Aaron Barrette
We all daydream. We all have hopes and dreams and visions of a better future. This is part of the human experience, and contrary to what our teachers and parents used to tell us daydreaming is a good thing— in moderation of course. The moment we stop dreaming of something better is the moment we accept our lot in life. It’s also good for us. In a 2013 article in National Geographic, University of Florida Psychiatrist Eugenio Rothe told author Christine Dell’Amore that, as our minds wander, different part of our brains activate, accessing information that may have previously been dormant or out of reach. According to Rothe, "This accounts for creativity, insights of wisdom and often the solutions to problems that the person had not considered."
Daydreaming (plus action of course) has driven human achievement to incredible levels. The mistake comes when we tie our happiness to this undetermined and undecided future.
“A more, better, someday is the enemy of your contentment.”
I came across the quote that I began this article with in Ryan Holiday’s book the Daily Stoic, and it really resonated. Like all the daily entries, Holiday introduces the chapter with a Stoic quote, this one from our old friend Epictetus:
This quote by Epictetus is PACKED with wisdom, and I especially love the idea that “happiness has all it wants.” When I think of Epictetus and his backstory the quote really comes to life. Unlike Marcus Aurelius, who was born into a Roman Patrician family, Epictetus was born a slave and used the study of philosophy to raise his lot in life, becoming more educated and more respected in the process. As I’ve written before, my attraction to Stoic philosophy is that it’s tied to a way of life, not just a theoretical discipline. It is something you can apply and practice daily. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control: we should accept calmly and dispassionately whatever happens. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through self-discipline. This is the central tenet of his philosophy and in my opinion is the single most important component of the Stoicism.
Stop trying to control what you can’t control.
Be happy in the moment. Even in the hardest of times there is always joy to be found in the day-to-day. If we continue to connect our happiness to what we’ve yet to accomplish in life we are certain to be disappointed. How many times have we accomplished something big in our lives only to realize the euphoria we anticipated was short-lived?
Brian Johnson, creator of the fantastic Optimize website, stresses that instead of chasing happiness we need to focus on “practicing” happiness. In this sense happiness is something that you practice every single day, like a habit. He connects the idea of practicing happiness with Thomas Jefferson’s inclusion of the “pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. According to Johnson the Jeffersonian idea of the pursuit of happiness is in reality the “practicing” happiness daily.
So how can we lay the groundwork to “practice” happiness daily? According to Jonathan Haidt, these conditions are accelerated via our personal relationships:
“If you want to predict how happy someone is, or how long she will live, you should find out about her social relationships. Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders. It’s not just that extroverts are naturally happier and healthier; when introverts are forced to be more outgoing, they usually enjoy it and find that it boosts their mood. Even people who think they don’t want a lot of social contact still benefit from it. And it’s not just that “We all need somebody to lean on”; recent work on giving support shows that caring for others is often more beneficial than is receiving help. We need to interact and intertwine with others; we need the give and the take; we need to belong. An ideology of extreme personal freedom can be dangerous because it encourages people to leave homes, jobs, cities, and marriages in search of personal and professional fulfillment, thereby breaking the relationships that were probably their best hope for such fulfillment.”
We all have visions of that ideal future state. It could be the next vacation, or how a promotion at work or a new job will impact our life. These dreams are part of the human experience and are important, provided there is action taken towards these objectives. The mistake comes when we link our happiness with this sought after goal.
More from Haidt:
“Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.”
This is something that hasn’t been easy for me. For a great portion of my life I’ve been guilty of connecting my personal happiness with my vision of a future state, often being unhappy and sometimes miserable during the journey. As i’ve become older and more mindful of this I’ve come up with a term that I’ve often been guilty of but have become much better at recognizing when it happens:
Getting caught up in my own head.
When I’m caught up in my own head I’m not properly engaged with those around me, my loved ones and closed friends. I may be out socially, or even at the dinner table with my family, but my mind is somewhere else. As I’ve become older and more mindful of this tendency I strive to be more engaged and more in the moment, because that is where the happiness really lies, in the personal experiences of day-to-day life.
I’ve long been fascinated with idioms, the phrases we often toss out to explain life. A very fitting idiom in regards to finding happiness in the moment is to “stop and smell the flowers.” There is so much wisdom about the human experience packed into those five words. We are all on a journey to get somewhere, but you have to enjoy the journey. The human experience is both exhilarating and exasperating, oftentimes both in the same day.
Embrace this fact, both the good and the bad.