Is Happiness A Choice?
“You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you invent, don’t select. While you sketch, don’t inspect. While you write the first draft, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.”
A mentor recently asked me one of those questions that stops you dead in your tracks. Not because it's a crazy question, but because you're amazed that it hasn't been asked of you at every important stage of your life. An honest answer to this question has the ability to shape everything you do and bring into your life. It slices away all the bullshit that builds up when we compare ourselves to other people. It might just be the most important question you ever ask yourself. Because it forces you to see the gaps between where you are and where you want to be.
What does "success" look like for you?
Before you answer that question, let's imagine success like a recipe. Whether it's a bite of artisan chocolate, a sip of reserve wine or the satisfying crunch of a pizza out of a brick oven – we're tasting what someone has chosen as the perfect reflection of what makes that food or drink a success for its creator.
When you pull apart the ingredients that go into the food you love, you start to see that there is something else at play. You see what makes that pizza so memorable is the attention to detail of the whole process.
Sure, if you're at home you can pull together a meal without much planning. But a restaurant wouldn't have much luck surviving if they didn't deliver a plate that met your expectations each and every time.
And here's the problem with success on an individual level.
You probably know the exact flavours you want when you bite into a piece of chocolate, take a sip of wine or devour a slice of pizza, but do you know the ingredients that let you taste a successful and fulfilling life?
So few of us do because everywhere you go and everything you've been taught reinforces a belief that success has one ingredient; money.
Money can be a key ingredient to success, just like you need the dough to make pizza. But how satisfying is a piece of dough without toppings? It's bland, boring and sure as hell isn't fulfilling.
The World Happiness Institute found in their research that, “While the US has achieved economic progress and an accumulation of wealth over the past half-century, this has not resulted in an increase of happiness for the people.”
So if money doesn't make you happier, what does?
German philosopher Immanuel Kant may have died in 1804, but his work made him one of the most influential figures in the history of western philosophy. He is to enlightenment thinking as Biggie is to hip-hop – a true OG who has the ability to make you think and reflect in ways that challenge the conventional bullshit rammed down your throat.
Throughout Kant's prolific career his work kept coming back to the conclusion that, "We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without."
This led Kant on a quest to discover that if it's not things, what does give you a rich life? It's the basis of what Kant shared as the three rules for happiness.
Something to do.
Something to love.
Something to hope for.
Does this sound like far too simple a solution for such a complex idea? Like it couldn't possibly be the answer to you being happier? Like seriously, how the hell could something so simplistic change your life?
Because it's simple by design. Things are only about as complicated as you make them out to be.
We live in a society that makes you believe that life needs to be complicated. That you can only achieve happiness by uprooting your entire life and becoming a monk in Tibet. Steve Jobs rebelled against the idea that we have to think this way. Jobs challenged us to see that, “Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
So let's go back to the question of what success looks like for you. This time around, you're going to get a chance to throw in some new ingredients. So not just financially, but all the flavours that give you a rich and fulfilling life.
Clarity in these ten areas of life are the first step to putting the three rules of happiness into practice.
Health
Family
Friends
Relationship
Mission/Career/Business
Finances
Adventure
Hobby
Spirituality
Emotion
This is where most of us get stuck because we look at that list and it's just words. They have no flavour. They're still just dough. Again, who the hell wants to eat plain dough? You want something that gives you a taste that keeps you coming back every single damn day.
What entices you to choose a meal off a menu, pick a bottle of wine off a shelf, or figure out what book you're going to read next? Each come with an enticing description to persuade you. Something that moves you. Something that draws you in and pulls you to take action.
You might not feel like you're a writer and that's okay. Right now, your only focus is taking what you're already thinking and getting it on paper.
Here are three questions to guide you and help bring a little flavour to each of the areas.
What does it mean to you?
What does it give you?
Why is this important to you?
Taking the time like most people won't gives you the freedom to live a life like most people can't. Having clarity in each of these areas is the first step in moving forward because it gives you a plan for the first rule of happiness. You now have something to do.
You're going to be tempted to put this off, so remember the words of author James Clear, "Procrastinating on something important is choosing to delay a better future."
It takes the same amount of energy to make yourself happy as it does to wish your life was different. This first step isn't just another thing to throw on your to-do list. This first step is the beginning of a better future.
