Growing up on Disney fairytales and romantic comedies, a part of me has longed for the “happily ever after.” The time of life when everything is set, all your troubles are behind you, and you get to revel in the good. I haven’t surveyed every human, but I’m pretty sure this is a common response. However, like I wrote about last week, happiness is a behavior, not a time or place. And part of that behavior is being grateful for what is.
Some dear friends of mine moved here recently and I’m approaching their arrival differently. In years past, I would have craved constancy and spun out into a “happily ever after” where they would be here forever, but now I know better. As much as I want to be “best friends for life” with someone, to have people in my life forever, that’s not how the world works. People that I thought I’d socialize with in my 90s, I’ve had to let go of. People I was super close to once upon a time know nothing about my life these days. Instead of being bitter about it, I’m accepting it. This is reality.
If you slow down and look, I bet you’ll find some things to be grateful for. Photo by Rodolfo Mari on Unsplash
Gratitude fits in because I’m grateful for what I’m currently experiencing, not what I think I’ll be experiencing. I’m beyond thrilled my friends are here and I’ll enjoy our time together while it lasts precisely because I know it won’t. They’ll move away or our lives will change. Something will happen, that’s inevitable, but also OK.
Psychology professor Robert Emmons says:
“[G]ratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted. . . . In effect, I think gratitude allows us to participate more in life. We notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, we celebrate goodness.”
I’m participating more in my current life and appreciating what I already have. The life that isn’t a fairytale, the one where I don’t have everything I could ever wish for. The life that keeps changing because we can’t press pause. In this life, I’m grateful for friends new and old. I’m grateful for the multiple communities I’m a part of. I’m grateful both my parents are still alive. I’m grateful for my nieces and nephews – the ones I’m related to by blood and the ones I’m not. I’m grateful for the cozy, safe, quiet apartment I live in. I’m grateful for flowers and sunshine and birds. I’m grateful I know what it means to feel joy and that I’m no longer trying to capture it because I recognize as much as I’d like to hold on to happy emotions, I cannot. I’m grateful I have so many things to be grateful for.
I dream of a world where we understand there is no happily ever after. A world where we remember happiness is a behavior, not a place or time. A world where we understand that we can magnify our life’s pleasures by feeling grateful for what is.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
A part of me believes that if only I had ____, I’d be happy. Or when ____ happens, then I’ll be happy. It’s one of the most pernicious lies that exists but I take comfort in knowing I’m not the only one who falls for it. There’s a reason we have about a billion books, podcasts, and courses on how to be happy – we humans don’t really know what will make us happy. We think we know but we don’t. Fortunately, there’s been a lot of research on the topic.
My favorite resource on happiness (so far) is Dr. Laurie Santos and her podcast “The Happiness Lab.” Dr. Santos is a happiness expert and taught THE most popular class at Yale in 300 years: Psychology and the Good Life. It’s been adapted into a free online course taken by more than 3.3 million people to date.
Dr. Santos has done a ton of research on happiness and discovered the way we go about achieving happiness is all wrong. We think happiness is about our circumstances – the job, the relationship, the house, etc., but in practice, science shows that’s not true. It’s not true because the brain gets used to anything – good and bad. For instance, when you buy a new iPhone, it’s fun for a while because it has cool new features, a better camera, etc., but then you just get used to it. It’s not the exciting, shiny thing it once was. It’s just your phone.
I feel happier looking at this kid. OMG so cute! Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash
“We kind of get that with material objects, but we forget that with big life changes,” Dr. Santos says. “You get this new promotion, or you get a new salary, or you get into a relationship. At first, yeah, it’s amazing, but then over time, you just get used to it. And this is hedonic adaptation; all the best things in life, we kind of just get used to over time.”
Not only do we get used to the best things in life and forget how easily we acclimate, but we also have a built-in mechanism telling us we’d be happier with more. That’s what dopamine, the happiness molecule, seeks: more Instagram followers, more gadgets, more money, more. In my spiritual philosophy, we say every human being has a thirst for limitlessness. Even when a person has a lot, they still want more. Clay Cockrell is a wealth psychologist to the 0.0001% and found even those people are miserable because instead of being satisfied with enough, they’ll say, “I have $500 million, but I’m not a billionaire.” The millionaire wants to be a billionaire and a billionaire wants to be a trillionaire.
My spiritual teacher says:
“However great may be the wealth of attainment, it cannot satisfy the hunger of the human mind, which always yearns for unlimited happiness. Those who run after wealth and reputation, name and fame, can never be happy unless they can attain an infinite quantity of the same. But because the world itself is finite, how can the objects of this world be infinite? Besides, it is not materially possible to acquire objects of an unlimited quantity. So worldly achievement – even if it is the acquisition of the whole globe – is neither unlimited nor eternal.”
I’ll address the desire for infinity shortly but to go back to happiness research, Dr. Santos says to change your reference point so that you look down, not up. Instead of comparing yourself to someone who is better off than you, compare yourself to someone worse off. It could also be the “you” from a different time or circumstance. Comparing down elicits gratitude, which increases happiness.
Santos also says we’re terrible at prioritizing the things that make us happy. When we’re stressed with work, the first thing we drop is a yoga class with a friend, but socializing makes us happier. When we’re tired, we scroll Netflix, but we’d be better off playing on Duolingo, a language-learning app. It’s for that reason I have a 734-day streak on Duolingo. I’m committed to my happiness y’all. And if you want to follow me there, I’m @kfpixie.
The biggest thing I’ve learned from Dr. Santos, and that I have to remind myself of frequently, is happiness is a daily activity. There is no arrival or destination. You don’t publish a bestselling book and then feel happy forever. It’s the day-to-day behavior that affects our overall happiness. Part of that day-to-day behavior, which Santos addresses in a later episode, is a spiritual practice. When I meditate, I’m touching into something infinite and quenching that thirst for limitlessness. It’s the way I’m able to satisfy the part of me that endlessly craves more. At least sometimes.
Part of being happier, right now, also involves recognizing our moods change, our circumstances change, and it’s unrealistic to think we’ll feel Happy with a capital H all the time. But that doesn’t mean we can’t move the needle to happier. It just takes some effort.
I dream of a world where we remember happiness is a behavior, not a destination. A world where we understand the material world will never satisfy our desires because we’ll always crave more. A world where we point ourselves to something greater than us to satisfy that craving. A world where we do what we can to be happier now.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
An emotion I feel frequently is frustration and it’s usually because people and situations aren’t moving as fast as I’d like. I don’t mean literally – I’m not a speed demon – I mean in terms of actions. A frequent complaint I have is, “Why is this taking so long?” That’s everything from a person returning my telephone call to becoming a bestselling author. I want everything yesterday. The whole “waiting” thing is a ripoff, if you ask me. Given my penchant for moving quickly, it should be no surprise that the universe gives me plenty of opportunities to practice patience.
I’ve written dozens of posts about patience over the years, including most recently on New Year’s Eve when I wrote about the future unfolding. I know that things bloom when they’re ready and we’re looking at our watches while God is looking at the calendar. But even with all those posts, I still want things to move quickly! This might also be a good time to mention it’s taken me three times as long to write this post as my other ones and that even writing a post about it being OK to go slow, I want to go fast.
I’m struggling with what to say but when I let my writing flow in the form of a letter, the words poured out. Here’s a letter to me from my Great Self but maybe your Great Self wants you to hear it too:
“I know you want everything yesterday. I know nothing moves as quickly as you’d like. You see the end-game, you know how things could be. It’s one of your gifts to dream, to imagine. It’s the creative spark that lives within you seeking expression. You have an active mind and that’s one of the best things about you.
“It’s easy for you to make big jumps, to go from A to Z very quickly but not everyone else is like that. Other people need to take baby steps. They need to move slower. They need time for their brains and bodies to catch up. It’s OK for you to match their pace, it’s OK for you to go slow. It’s OK for you to rest and relax and know that everything is going exactly as it should at the pace it should.
If you’re going at a snail’s pace, that’s OK too. Photo by Olivier Piau on Unsplash
“You aren’t alone, you aren’t doing all this by yourself. It’s not your self-will that’s making things happen. It’s you matching the universal, Cosmic rhythm. It’s you syncing your desires with the Cosmic desires. It’s the outside world pouring into you, supporting you.
“When you want to rush, think about the natural world. You may want to harvest blueberries right now but you have to wait for a bud, then a bloom, then a blueberry. The natural world knows how to move slowly. It’s the human world that does not. It’s people who say you should have this accomplished by this age and if you don’t, you’re a failure. It’s the human world that touts overnight successes and doesn’t honor the people who write four books before they publish a bestseller. It’s the human world that tells you that you should be moving at a pace other than the one you’re moving at.
“All of nature is here telling you it’s OK to go slow, that you can take all the time you need. Rest, be gentle with yourself, and know there’s nothing shameful or wrong about incrementally working toward the things you want. That’s usually how it happens.
“Remember that your spiritual teacher says, ‘Suppose, immediately after planting some saplings and seeds, someone digs them up to find out if they have taken root or sprouted. That would not be considered wise.’
“Sometimes you have to wait for your desires to be expressed, but there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s natural and the way the world works. You’re doing great and even though you don’t believe it, all is well, my dear, all is well. Go as slow as you need to go and let other people go slowly too. What is meant for you will not run past you. Trust that.”
I dream of a world where we remember it’s humans who tell us to rush and go as fast as possible. A world where we understand nature models slow and steady progress. A world where we recognize it can take a while for our dreams and desires to sprout but that doesn’t mean they aren’t blossoming. A world where we remind ourselves it’s OK to go slow.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
I’m a big fan of plans. I like organization and structure because it helps me to relax and feel safe. (But that’s not to say I hate spontaneity because I don’t. One of my favorite things is when someone calls me and says, “Hey, I’m in your neighborhood. Are you free?”) Given my feelings about plans, it should be no surprise that I make a lot of them: plans for events and also my life.
This past week though, boy, am I feeling the punchline of that joke, “How do you make God laugh? Tell Her your plans.” Nearly all of my plans were scuppered, dashed, and any other word you can think of that means “didn’t work.” It was everything from telephone calls to housesitting. The amount I had to pivot this past week was astounding. When these things don’t work out, I feel frustrated, disappointed, and depending on the situation, despair.
I have to remind myself that Love has a plan for me (and it has a plan for you, too). Here are two small examples of how I know that’s true. I was supposed to housesit on Tuesday and Wednesday but the homeowners canceled last minute. I had already made tentative plans that hinged on being at their place so I was of course disappointed. But you know what happened? On Wednesday, I felt a searing pain in my hip that I hadn’t experienced in years. I spent the afternoon lying in bed watching Netflix. In other words, it was a blessing that I wasn’t in a stranger’s home scavenging for a heating pad and painkillers.
It may not seem like it, but Love has a plan for you. Photo by Khadeeja Yasser on Unsplash
On Thursday, I woke up about two hours earlier than I normally do, which meant I also napped two hours earlier than I usually do. (For the unfamiliar, I can’t keep my eyes open four hours after I wake up.) An HVAC guy was scheduled to come to my house between 1 and 5 p.m. but he showed up early at 12:15, right when I’d normally be napping. If I hadn’t woken up earlier in the day unintentionally, and thus napped earlier, I would have missed him completely.
When you live with the truth that Love has a plan for you, something interesting happens. Tosha Silver says it best in her book Outrageous Openness:
“You begin to feel on a cellular level that things are unfolding exactly in the way that they should. At the rate and timing they need. You start to trust the process. You relax from the endless pushing that most of us learned at birth. On some fundamental, mysterious level, you just let go …. [Y]ou relax into this calm curiosity about where the flow might go. You’re detached yet somehow riveted by how the story will unfold. You feel spaciously receptive and open to what wishes to come.”
I’m not saying I have this mastered by any means. I do love my plans, after all, but I’m trying. I keep turning to Love and saying, “You know what’s best for me. Align my will with your will. Help me to know and trust that everything is unfolding exactly as it should.” For someone like me, this is INCREDIBLY difficult but fighting the plan Love has for me is like fighting the tide and anyway, I’ve seen over and over again that Love knows better than I do.
I dream of a world where we realize that things are unfolding in exactly the way they should. A world where we understand when things don’t happen how we’d like there might be a very good reason for it. A world where we let go and relax into a calm curiosity about what will happen next. A world where we remember even when it doesn’t seem like it, Love has a plan for us.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.