I view myself as “naive optimist” because generally I am a happy person. I just am.  I have a hard time understanding why people that are not in dire straits can be unhappy.  So, I put some thought into why someone’s level of happiness may be greater or less based on similar lifestyles and circumstances.  Although, there is no surefire “How to Be Happy” formula, here are a few things that have helped me put my level of happiness into perspective:

1. Happiness doesn’t, come from “making it.”

What do you long for? Fame? Fortune? Unlimited travel experience?  Retirement? Imagine that I could snap my fingers and give it to you. Would you now be happy? Indeed, you’d be euphoric, in the short run. But gradually you would adapt to your new circumstance and life would return to its normal mix of emotions. To recover the joy, you would now need an even higher high.

As an example – at one extreme, people with disabilities-even those paralyzed after car accidents-typically recover normal levels of day-to-day happiness. At the other extreme, people who’ve won a state lottery also settle back to their characteristic level of happiness. Happiness is less a matter of getting what we want than wanting what we have.

2. Savor the moment.

Happiness, said Benjamin Franklin, “is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by the little advantages that occur every day.”

As a future-oriented person, I periodically remind myself of Pascal’s remark that we too often live as if the present were merely our means to the future. “So we never live, but we hope to live-and as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.”

To live in the present means, for me, taking delight in the day’s simple cherished moments. Happiness isn’t somewhere off in the future, but in the pleasures of my morning coffee, listening to Sirius satellite during my commute, or even the day’s last moments, sitting on the couch, watching a movie with my special someone.

3. Take control of your time.

There is, nevertheless, a place for setting goals and managing time. Compared to those who’ve learned a sense of helplessness, those with an “internal focus of control” do better in school, cope better with stress, and live with greater well-being.

One way to feel more empowered is to master our use of time. For happy people, time is “filled and planned,” says Oxford University psychologist Michael Argyle. “For unhappy people time is unfilled, open and uncommitted; they postpone things and are inefficient.”

To manage time effectively, set big goals, then break them down into daily aims. Writing a book is, for me, too formidable and remote a goal. But writing four pages a week is easy enough. If I repeat this process 52 times over and, presto – my book is done! Although we often overestimate how much we will accomplish in any given week (leaving us frustrated), we generally underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just a little progress every week.

4. Act happy.

This is the most important trait of living happy. I am a positive thinker, so it is fitting that I concede to the power of hope-filled optimism. We are as likely to act ourselves into a way of thinking as to think ourselves into action. In experiments, people who pretend to have high self-esteem begin feeling better about themselves. Even when manipulated into a smiling expression, people feel better; when they scowl, the whole world seems to scowl back. So put on a happy face. Pretend optimism. Simulate outgoingness. Going through the motions can trigger the emotions.

5. Seek work and leisure that engage your skills.

Sometimes the challenges of work or home are too great, and we feel stressed. At other times, we’re underchallenged and bored. In between these two states is a zone where we feel challenged, but not overmatched. We get absorbed. We lose consciousness of time. We are in a state that Russian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.”

In his studies of writers, dancers, surgeons, chess players, mountain climbers, and the like, Csikszentmihalyi discovered that people find the flow experience satisfying. Even if we make a lower but livable wage, it pays to seek work that we find interesting and challenging.

So pick up your camera. Tune that instrument. Sharpen those woodworking tools. Get out those ballet  slippers. Inflate the basketball. Pull down a stimulating book. Oil the fishing reel. It’s time to head out or  invite friends over for drinks. To pull down the Scrabble game. To go for a drive. Rather than vegetating in self-focused idleness, lose yourself in the flow of active work and play. “In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be a gainer,” noted Robert Louis Stevenson. “To forget oneself is to be happy.”

6. Get rest.

Happy people live active, vigorous lives, yet they reserve time for renewing sleep and solitude. Today, however, many people suffer from shortened sleep, leaving them groggy and unable to get into flow.

I HATE arguments – I really do.  To me, most arguments are ultimately pointless, meaningless, and conducted over small matters that have little to no real meaning in life. By choosing to argue, rather than choosing to be happy, you are setting your own course. The two are mutually exclusive; I’ve never met two people who were truly happy when arguing.  Choose happiness over being right!

So, the next time you’re searching for happiness at your work, your relationship or even at home, just step back for a second and think.  You will soon realize that you need to stop searching – happiness is right next to you.

Here are 12 ways to create and give happiness to others, follow this and soon you will find that you have much more of it.

1.  Live in the Moment.

Don’t think about how great things will be in the future. Don’t dwell on what did or didn’t happen in the past. Learn to be in the here and now, and experience life as it’s happening, and appreciate the world for the beauty that it is, right now. Practice makes perfect with this crucial skill.

2.  Connect with others.

In my experience, very few things can achieve happiness as well as connecting with other human beings, cultivating relationships, bonding with others.

3.  Spend time with those you love.

This might seem almost the same as the item above, and in reality it’s an extension of the same concept, a more specific application. Spending time with the people you love is extremely important to happiness … and yet it’s incredible how often we do just the opposite, and spend time alone, or disconnected from those we love, or spend time with people we don’t much like. Make it a priority to schedule time with the people you love. Make that your most important item of the day.

4.  Do the things you love.

What do you love doing most? Figure out the 4-5 things you love doing most in life, the things that make you happiest, and make those the foundation of your day, every day. Eliminate as much of the rest as possible. Focus on the good things.

5.  Do work you love.

An extension, of course, of doing the things you love, but applied to work. Are you already doing the work you love? Then you’re one of the lucky ones, and you should appreciate how lucky you are. If you aren’t doing the work you love, you should make it a priority to try to find work you’re passionate about, and to steer your career in that direction.

6.  Help others.

Is there any better feeling than helping a fellow human being? There aren’t many. And it’s not too hard

7.  Notice the small things.

Instead of waiting for the big things to happen – marriage, kids, house, nice car, big promotion, winning the lottery – find happiness in the small things that happen every day. Little things like having a quiet cup of coffee in the early morning hours, or the delicious and simple taste of berries, or the pleasure of reading a book with your child or even that surprisingly good cheesecake your partner made.  Noticing these small pleasures, throughout your day, makes a huge difference.

8.  Appreciate.

Learning to be grateful for what’s in our lives, for the people who have enriched our lives, goes a long way toward happiness. It helps us to appreciate what we have and what we have received, and the people who have helped us.

9.  Simplify your life.

This is really about identifying the things you love (see above) and then eliminating everything else as much as possible. By simplifying your life in this way, you create time for your happiness, and you reduce the stress and chaos in your life. In my experience, living a very simple life is also a pleasure in itself.

10.  Learn to accept.

One of the challenges for people like me – people who want to improve themselves and change the world – is learning to accept things as they are. Sometimes it’s better to learn to accept, and to love, the world as it is, and people as they are, rather than to try to make everything and everyone conform to your own ideal. I’m not saying you should accept cruelty and injustice, but learn to love things when they are less than “perfect”.

11.  Bite your tongue.

That means learning to let go of things that you’d otherwise bring up. And it means caring enough about the other person’s happiness (and your own!) to make the effort to try and change. It won’t always be easy, and the first couple of times will be rough. But the more you learn to let the little things in life glide over you, like a gentle breeze blows across a field, the more at peace and happier you will be.

12.  Focus on the good things.

I have been told that sometimes I am overly optimistic and that I never bring up issues because I am always content with the way things are.  Well that’s because I always focus on the good things – in my relationship, at work and in every aspect of my life.  It is who I am — and it really has helped shine a positive light on almost any difficult situation that I have come across.

So, the next time you’re wondering why you’re not happier – take a look at this list and you may find that happiness is already next to you.

Respectfully,
Rob