“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” ~ Frederick Keonig.
How happy are you? Let me phrase that question another way: how much do you enjoy living your life? Could you train yourself to enjoy your life more? The same life that you have now?
Please understand that I am not talking about changing your life. (At least not in this article. There are several other articles about how to improve your life.) I am talking about taking greater enjoyment in the life that you currently have right now. Would you like to be happier without changing anything in your life now but your mindset?
Different kinds of happiness
Firstly, let me clarify what I mean by happy here. There are moments in our life when we feel supremely blissful – when a baby is born, when we get the promotion, when we win the lottery (am hoping still )). I am not talking about increasing these rare moments. One of the things that makes these moments so precious is their rarity.
I am also not talking about those moments when we feel the feeling of happiness – when we are hanging out with good friends, when we are enjoying a lively debate, when we are enjoying an evening out with our partner. Those moments are indeed enjoyable and we can very easily increase the number of those moments in our lives by setting aside more time for those kinds of leisure activities. But the happy feeling of those moments is not the happiness that I am referring to either.
Enjoyment of Life
The happiness that I am referring to is the enjoyment of the life that we live everyday, the appreciation of the life that we live everyday. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not advocating that you enjoy and be happy about the bad things in your life – I would be the first to say that you are a raving lunatic if you start giggling the next time you get a parking ticket or stub your toe or get into a car accident. Mishaps are not generally something we enjoy although we can appreciate them as opportunities to grow and master our method of dealing with challenges.…but more about that later. What I want to discuss with you now is the ability to truly appreciate and be truly aware of all the good things that exist in your life right now.
Example of negative focus
I recently spoke with a friend who has two-year old triplets. She had been trying to have a baby for five years and finally with the aid of modern medicine she conceived and delivered triplets. She had been overjoyed when she discovered that she was pregnant initially. But in listening to her conversation recently I could discern no sign of any of the joys of parenthood that she might be experiencing.
She spoke to me in detail of the challenges and difficulties of dealing with three two-year olds at once, and the money worries, and the worries about the future in terms of money for college education and other fears and negatives along that line. She spoke for one full hour and only twice mentioned anything positive about the experience of being a mother of triplets. But when I asked her outright if she enjoyed being a mother of triplets, her unequivocal response was “Yes, most definitely!”
You see, the point is this: while she had a lot to celebrate and enjoy, she was focusing only on the challenges and worries about the future. She was aware of the good in the situation but choose to focus solely on the negative. And this is something that many of us do. It is a question of focus and acknowledging the positive value of the experiences of our lives. There are a lot of great things about my friend’s situation – she gets three times as many hugs, and giggles and laughs. When the kids are being helpful, she has three times as many hands to help. The simple pleasure of having finally gotten her dream of being a mother. The list goes on and on. But she chooses to focus on her fears and worries and negative aspects of the situation, and completely neglect the good things in her situation.
Example of positive focus
Similarly I met another lady recently who smilingly hugged me and chatted about all the good things in her life. We were about thirty minutes into the conversation before she mentioned that she had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was in the process of having that treated. She did not attempt to diminish the gravity of it but was choosing to focus on the positive aspects, even when positive aspects seemed hard to come by. She was talking about how lucky she was to be living in an age where treatments for cancer are readily available. She was talking about how she had a 50% chance of beating it rather than a 50% chance of it beating her.
The importance of focus
What is the difference here? Clearly, the difference is focus. For the majority of us throughout most of our lives we have neither an overabundance of fantastic or terrible things going on. Mostly it is just normal regular everyday life. But how much we appreciate our lives is a matter of our choice of focus.
That focus is generally something we learn during childhood. So if you find that you have a negative focus, don’t despair, you can retrain yourself. You can train yourself to be happier. Just as you learnt how to focus on your fears, you can learn to focus on your dreams. Just as you learnt how to focus on the negatives of any situation you can learn to focus on the positives.
Denial
One important factor to note here is that you must not engage in denial. Denial will in the long run backfire and make you desperately unhappy. The only way that you can comfortably put your focus on the positive is to set in motion a plan to deal with the negative. So my friend who was worrying about her kids’ future decided to set up a college fund, and put a specific amount into it each month. And now the negative has become a positive. Whenever she thinks of the future and the kids’ college education, she has the comforting thought that she is doing something to cater for the future financial cost of that. She is also brainstorming other ideas for dealing with that challenge. But just worrying needlessly is useless and mentally draining.
The habit of gratitude
In order to train yourself to enjoy your life, you must get into the habit of gratitude. Now if you are inclined to scoff as this, I suggest you give it a try and then decide. It is a simple but effective strategy for increasing your enjoyment of life. Think about all the things in your life that you are grateful for; the things that you appreciate having. If you really are a negatively focused person, this will feel artificial and corny at first (I speak from personal experience :) ). But stick with it. Remember you are breaking a lifelong habit of focusing on the negative, so it will not happen overnight. It will require patience and practice.
If you can’t think of anything to be grateful for, here are a few ideas to start you off:
* I am grateful that I can read.
* I am grateful that I have access to this article that may change my life for the better.
* I am grateful that I have control over my actions.
* I am grateful that I can make a choice to accept this philosophy or not.
* I am grateful that I can see. (If this sort of thing seems ridiculous to you, think of all the people who are blind. Imagine if you got into an accident today and lost your sight, just how much your life would change).
* I am grateful that I have a job (even if you hate your job – especially if you hate your job, you need to focus on the good things it does for you – it pays the bills, it keeps you gainfully occupied during the day).
* I am grateful for my family.
* I am grateful for my friends.
I am sure you get the picture here. Think of as many things as you can. And be specific. Why are you grateful for your friends? Because you have some one to hang out with – because you have someone to share your struggles with – because you have someone you can call on in an emergency.
Make being grateful a habit. Do this at least twice every day – once in the morning and once before bed. And be genuine about it. Contemplate the things that you are really grateful for – a roof over your head, a hot shower, your own bed to sleep in at night, a good friend, your mom. We, all of us, have things to be grateful for in our lives.
The good side of negative situations
The next step in retraining yourself to truly enjoy your life is to consider the good side of a situation that has been really upsetting you. Let’s say you absolutely hate your job and your boss. You drag yourself off to work each day and count down the seconds until quitting time. You dread crossing paths with your boss or a certain coworker.
Your challenge now is to focus on what is good about your job. Well, the fact that you have one for starters. Your job gives you money that provides you with many of the things you enjoy in life – like food :) , clothes, a home, an education, recreation. What other good things can you think of about your job? It is giving you experience so that when you are ready to look for another job, you have that to sweeten up your resume. You are also learning to deal successfully with a difficult boss or coworker. Think of as many good things as you can about this situation that you previously only viewed in a negative light.
Appreciate your life
In every aspect of your life, appreciate the things that you have rather than constantly hankering after the things that you do not have – do not succumb to “the grass is greener” syndrome. After all, there is probably someone somewhere wishing they had your life or some part of it.
Appreciate the good aspects of the people in your life and try to find a way to negate the negative aspects. Appreciate the good things in your life and try to find a way to improve the bad ones. Do you spend all of your time bemoaning the challenges in your life? Try to spend at least an equal amount of your time talking and thinking about the great things in your life. Appreciate the people and the things that you have in your life that you really like and love. You will soon find that you enjoy life a whole lot more than you do now.
What are the good things in your life? What do you have to be grateful for?
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