Happiness

Of course, I want to teach my kids everything I know: especially the knowledge I gained the hard way. But what if you could only teach them one thing? [Don't focus on why you can only teach them one thing, just humor the exercise and isolate the most important thing you know.

I found this aphorism from Michel de Montaigne that captures the one thing I think my offspring need to know:

The man who is happy is not he who is believed to be so but he who believes he is so. (Geary's Guide to the World's Greatest Aphorisms by James Geary, page 128.)

If I had known this principle as a younger man, I could have wasted less time and focused more on lasting happiness. The quick-fix happiness I sought in booze, girls, games, food, TV, and many other trivial pursuits did not return anything over time.

Imagine your happiness is measurable. Your happiness starts at zero, and you have a beer to push it up to a "1". After six beers, are you at a happiness level of "6"? Maybe, but there is a law of diminishing returns that applies here. At some point, you have one too many beers. The hangover itself will sap your happiness level, and that is in addition to any errors of judgement you may have committed while intoxicated. No matter what, you always lose the happiness that each beer brought. Beer/Food/Drugs/etc do not leave a residual happiness, they wear off.

Reset your happiness meter and lets try another exaple. Starting at "0" you turn on TV and find a new episode of your favorite TV show. Happiness level soars to a "10" while the show is on, drops to a "5" immediately after, and then registers a zero once it has left your short-term memory. If you were supposed to be doing something else instead of watching TV at that time, then the drop off will be steeper and deeper. TV does not produce a residual happiness.

Now a better way, in my opinion: Do something for a relationship that you don't feel like doing. Give a back rub, cook something that you don't like but that person does, listen to a boring story enthusiastically, or let them control the TV remote tonight. The happiness meter starts at zero, plunges into negative numbers for a brief time, and then slowly climbs to about a "2". Two years later, you recall a time when you did this selfless act and find that it still provides a residual level "2" happiness. If you can amass an impressive history of selfless acts, you will notice two things. First, they add up to a higher level of residual happiness (which means they cause your happiness to sit at a constant level "10" or higher, even in the darkest of times. Second, the object of your selfless acts will probably reciprocate, which both spikes your happiness and raises the residual happiness level.

My young kids can't really learn it yet. They have a lot of living to do before they know how true this aphorism is. Therefore, the best way for me to teach them now is by my example. I hope they see me working on my happiness, and actively choosing happiness. I hope that they intuitively choose happiness, regardless of what their friends say or what conventional wisdom has decided. I hope that they see the difference between short-term happiness and long-term happiness.

2009 may be a really hard year. If it is, I think I am ready to be happy anyway. I am hoping that everyone is surprised by how well 2009 treats us, and that happiness comes easily. If not, I plan to keep investing in those long-term happiness builders that I find with my kids, wife, extended family, charity, and self-improvement.

I hope your 2009 is filled happiness! Thanks for reading my blog.