Choices. We make them constantly. In the morning we make a choice of when to get up, to have Fruit Loops or toast, to wear the blue sweater or the green… and we don’t stop making choices until we go back to sleep that night. If you really think about it, most of our thinking takes the form of choices: A or B? This or that? Now or later? Yes or No? We’re like walking, talking choice machines.
You even made a choice to click on this article and then another one to actually read it. Not to mention all the choices you’ll be confronted with as you decide on whether or not to use the information contained herein–no pressure, though.
It’s been said that the average person makes between 600 and 1000 choices every day. And with all these choices, has it ever occurred to you that your happiness is no different? That happiness is a choice?
In fact, the choice to be happy may be the most important decision you can make. That being said, so few of us ever do. The vast majority of people believe that happiness somehow falls outside themselves; that it all has to do with external things, people and events that they can’t control. And so they go about their days at the mercy of–well–everything. This paradigm suggests that it’s not up to us if we get to be happy or not.
Ironically, all those who buy into this paradigm have made a choice that happiness is not a choice.
Don’t beat yourself up too much—we all do it. It’s second nature to us. Something happens that we don’t like and we react—usually with unhappiness. But it doesn’t have to be that way. All paradigms can be changed, including this one.
You can choose happiness right now by doing these three little things…
1) Remember that happiness is a choice.
Happiness is a choice, just as unhappiness is. Given the option, wouldn’t you rather pick happiness?
“Now, hold on a minute!” you might say. “That is all well and good, but I can’t just decide to be happy when something bad happens. I’m only human.”
The fact of the matter is that you can (with practice) make a choice and decide to act in a different way—in a controlled and present way, instead of reacting in a way born from negative conditioning. In this way you will come to understand that reality is subjective. The events of our lives are only as real to the extent that we identify with them.
2) Limit your expectations of others.
We tend to feel injured by the actions of others when we disagree with them. The more we dwell on the imagined offense, the more frustrated, stressed and unhappy we become. But, if we limit our expectations of others it becomes harder for them to upset us. Epictetus once said, “Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinions of the things that happen.” In this way, external factors play less of a role in our happiness. It becomes more of an internal process. We take responsibility for our own happiness.
3) Change the way you look at things.
Wayne Dyer is fond of saying, “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
Say, for example, that I have a lot of work to do. The prospect of the work may make me unhappy—but only if I allow it to. If I look at my work as a mountainous chore, it tends to become just that. I begin to fret and worry about where to even start. I might get angry that I have so much to do. I might even become spiteful or jealous of my co-workers who seem to have less to do. As such, I fight and struggle with the work all day. But, if I alter my approach and look at the work differently and reduce it down to nothing but a small pile of paper, the weight and pressure dissolves. Instead of looking at the workload in its entirety, I do one thing at a time, do it well and move on. By breaking the work down into small, more manageable pieces the task seems so much less daunting. As the Buddha said, “A jug fills drop by drop.”
Choosing happiness is possible for all of us. But, it does take practice and effort. It means you will need to develop a state of awareness to keep yourself focused on your intention to choose, instead of compulsion to react.
For more detailed information about choosing happiness please read my book, My Happy Workplace.
And by all means, if you like this or any of my other posts, please leave a comment. I would love hearing your views.
Happiness,
Troy