Reflections on Happiness

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­­­Reflections on Happiness

This was a rough week for me. I struggled more than usual to find inner calm, peace, and a return to my typical more optimistic outlook. My experience happily celebrating the 4th of July with grandkids and family changed in an instant. The Highland Park tragedy served as a painful reminder of the deep-rooted evil around us, especially with it happening in a community close to me with people I love, and it is still reverberating loud inside my soul.

We clearly live in an unusually disruptive time with uncertainties fueling evil behaviors all around us. It makes it harder for anyone to stay sane. It remains to be seen whether or not we have now possibly reached a critical mass where a louder majority of people have had enough of this type of senseless violence affecting completely innocent people.

I typically don't spend any time on these pages on politics. More often than not, it feels futile. As you well know, I don't believe politics is the answer. Certainly not in its current form. We spend too much of our energy investing our hopes in people far away who ultimately will do what is best for them. Not us. The answer is for more and more people to have better conversations, get more involved in things they can affect, and ultimately create a more "democratized democracy". The first step is to disagree more agreeably and practice more humility, vulnerability, and a willingness to listen and engage with people we don't know. First then, with reduced fear and hostility, can we find common ground and create a more perfect union.

I believe this almost unilaterally. But given what has happened in the last few weeks alone, I will make an exception as wish to speak my mind briefly, but passionately, before diving into this week’s topic.

I was in the Marines; I was trained using an AK47. I AM AT A COMPLETE LOSS for what freedom we are protecting by allowing civilians the right to buy these kinds of automatic machine guns. For what possible use? Firearms are now the leading cause of death in children up to 18 years old. That is a massive failure on all our parts. It shouldn't be that way and it certainly doesn't have to be that way.

I consider myself to be extremely tolerant to all kinds of views. I respect most of them as long as they are kind in nature and consistently and humanly portrayed. Including second amendment rights, of course. I am not extreme in my views about anything. I can find reason in almost all positions. And typically, I try my best to understand them. But giving people the right to buy automatic weapons is a crazy idea that we stand alone in somehow protecting. And it has had nothing but catastrophic consequences. It has been abused and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. And it has to stop. Now.

And beyond the obvious bloodshed and personal tragedy that defies imagination, these automatic weapons also rob us all of one of our fundamental rights as democratic citizens: to exist safely in a public space. To not worry, or check the exit signs upon entering a room, to walk through the world without the anxiety of you and your loved ones facing gunfire. Whether that be sending your children to school, sitting in your place of worship, shopping at a grocery store, or attending a concert. When we think about our fundamental rights—of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—it’s hard for me to conceive of how these weapons don’t impede on all three.

Ok. Sorry about that. I will now take a deep breath and turn back to my normal habitat and to something closer to where I typically spend my energy and time: happiness. And as I just stated, I had to work a lot harder this week to get back into that lane.

Happiness is obviously both a daunting question as well as an important topic. I can't easily do it justice in any one post. And, to some extent, most of my writing hovers around the ingredients for how to live a happy life, collectively and individually. I mean, what other possible objectives are there?

There are many dimensions of happiness that get us in trouble. It's certainly relative. Happy relative to what and whom? We are mirroring creatures by nature and we keep comparing and contrasting our own situation to that of others. But what brings others joy and contentment is not one-size-fits-all.

It's also fleeting. Happy when? Clearly, all humans suffer. All humans go through difficult patches of time. And all of us eventually die. So, when do you exactly measure your happiness? Is one such time more important than others? Are they weighed equally or are they like compounding interest? A little happy all the time accumulates to very happy later? Or does it work differently? Is happiness perhaps more like a bank account? You must fill it up in order to have something to take out? Like balancing your "happiness checkbook" with other emotional investments and withdrawals? Is it a zero-sum game or will more happiness beget more happiness?

So many questions to ponder.

One definition, or at least consideration, that I have found helpful is from Laurie Santos (more on her below). She talks about happiness in two distinct categories. An emotional aspect she often refers to as "Happiness IN" in your life and then a more cognitive aspect she refers to as "Happiness WITH" your life. I think it is a very helpful and useful distinction.

“Happiness IN” is what I think of more as happiness NOW. I also think this is what most people think about when they discuss happiness. If you google “happiness”, you typically find images in the happy now domain. Smiling faces, vacation pictures of beaches, drinks, camaraderie, and "fun times". A lot of biology is at play, whether that’s via social contagion (we do what others do) or the pleasure center neurotransmitters that steer us towards pushing our instant gratification buttons. 

Before I dive into Happiness With, let me state clearly: these moments of happiness, however fleeting, are really important. They contribute significantly towards a better-lived experience. I mean, what would life be like without that moment of music, dinner with friends, or laughter? To some extent, they are what life is supposed to be like. At least in, good times, right? 

But I also think our pursuit of these aspects of happiness is a bit of a trap. They are, at best, incomplete and, at worst, distractions towards other forms of happiness. They are akin to head fakes. We get drawn towards something we think makes us happy, only to find much later—it didn't.

When we think and dream about these moments, they are always pleasant. But when we achieve them, that gratification doesn’t always last very long and it’s often not as intensely satisfying as you would like it to be. And sometimes, they literally and figuratively cause hangovers!

So, that brings me to the happiness WITH dimension. This is the more retrospective aspect of happiness. Are you happy WITH your life? Are you happy with what you have created? Or, at least, with what you believe you are striving towards? Is there something significant missing that you feel, but perhaps can't identify or articulate? Many people know something is missing in their lives, but can't always locate specifically what. I guess this is the deathbed test. Towards the end of your life, will you look at it and say: Yes, I lived a good life. I did my best. And I am truly happy with how it all turned out. 

Of course, the crux of this lies within the fact that there is a tradeoff between the IN and the WITH aspect of happiness. Not always, but often. No gain without pain, you know. We have to make short-term investments, or even sacrifices, in order to contribute to the kind of life we can be happy with. However, and equally so, we cannot delay all forms of gratification such that the journey towards the life we want is miserable and free from any form of happiness. On that path, we won't find many friends, experience much love, and probably not find the inspiration and energy we need to take us to the ultimate destination of a life we are happy with.  

So, how do you find the right balance? 

Well, that's the big question, isn't it? For me, I can say, without much doubt, that I am guilty of overdosing on WITH and starving the IN aspects of my own happiness allocation. The book I am thinking of writing might be called LIVING IN REVERSE, as I am so completely convinced and committed to the notion of a happy with my life philosophy. However, I do need to work a bit harder on the happy IN dimension. I am not so good at vacations, free time, play, and sheer in-the-moment joy. I am increasingly committed to improving myself here and now, and with more grandkids, older age, and friends with similar aspirations,  I am hopeful I will find a better balance. Help with this endeavor is both wanted and much appreciated.  

However, I will end by stating that our culture at large would probably benefit from shifting more of its happiness narrative towards a longer-term Happiness WITH ideology. We live in such a short-term focused world and more and more people are struggling to find happiness. If you had a time machine and could go back in time, whether that’s 50, 100, or 500 years ago, and you asked those people to list things they wanted that would make them happier, I would argue we have achieved almost all of those things for most people by now. We live longer, have better access to food, have higher incomes, more material wealth, better education, bigger houses, etc. And yet, I am not sure our average happiness is higher. 

We keep selling more and more happiness IN when people want more happiness WITH. At least, that’s what I think is going on. That's also why I am a purpose digger and long-term fanatic. To a fault, perhaps. 

There is much to share on this topic, of course, but I will simply share three pieces of relevant fodder that inspired me as I was thinking more about happiness this week. 

• First, a reminder for those that haven't read Scott Peck's classic, The Road Less Travelled. It inspired my own thinking powerfully around happiness and life, in general, and the importance of delayed gratification, in particular.

• I mentioned Laurie Santos above. You can read more about her here. I also liked Shane Parrish's interview around these topics with Laurie which you can listen to here.

• Finally, Sam Harris interviewed Morgan Housel who writes a lot about money. Since money often is so wrapped up with happiness, I found their conversation to be helpful and thoughtful. 

Have a great week!