Take Responsibility for Your Happiness

In previous postings, I’ve alluded to The Art of Happiness, a tome of collaboration between the Dalai Lama and psychologist Howard C. Cutler, M.D.

The most revealing passage from the book was something Dr. Cutler noted – that in canvassing his colleagues in the psychiatry field, none had ever noted “being happy” as a therapy goal. That seemed telling to me, because once you move away from the tactical treatment of various conditions and issues, shouldn’t being happy be the ultimate goal?

So, if doctors and therapists aren’t putting happiness on your To-Do list, how do you get there? The short answer is to take responsibility for your own happiness. But that seems like a daunting task. How does one go about charting a course to happiness?

Urban Monk has an enlightening piece (pun intended) by guest blogger John J. Patton that examines this very topic. In a section titled A Light Unto Yourself, Patton lays out some very simple and easily managed rules of the road for taking charge of your own happiness. As in most things of a Buddha nature, everything revolves around being accountable and responsible on your own, instead of looking toward outside forces to provide what you are seeking.

Here are a couple that resonated with me:

I value my inner peace more than I do winning, defending my identity, proving my point, or reactively expressing momentary emotions.

I understand that my feelings are natural, and so make no apologies for them.

I make plans for the future, but remain open in order to respond to each moment directly.

I learn from the past, but do not allow it to interfere with the present.

Though I cannot always control my thoughts, I can control which ones I pursue and give energy.

Patton’s list is a must-read for anyone who is ready to take advantage of the massive power that lies within the self. If you haven’t added being happy to your list of goals and objectives, perhaps now is the perfect time. If so, Patton’s piece is an excellent way to kick off your journey.

A Light Unto Yourself / In Case of Emergency , via Urban Monk

Suffering Sucks

I hurt my back the other day by sneezing. I wasn’t pushing an elderly lady out of the way of a speeding, out-of-control truck, or wrassling a bear. I was walking across the parking lot at work, my laptop bag slung over my left shoulder with my umbrella held up with my right hand, ineffectively deflecting the nearly-horizontal raindrops, when I felt that familiar itchy-tickle of a ker-choooo that would seconds later erupt.

Ker-choooo. Ouch.

So I’ve spent the last couple of days enjoying my new regimen of Tylenol and Advil, alternating between shiny red tablets and adobe-hued caplets, and it still hurts. Muscle spasms are a bitch.

It’s not the first time I’ve experienced lower back trouble – more like the 73rd. Fully supportive of the Buddhist concept of impermanence, I know the pain and tremors won’t last forever. Unless they do. And it’s only truly excrutiating when I walk or stand a certain way, so I’m trying to avoid the curse of being upright. Sitting is bearable, and luckily, my sitting position creates a nice shelf for my laptop so I can wallow in my discomfort and tell you all about it.

Didn’t this just turn out to be your lucky day?

Anyway, as I was walking the (seemingly) three miles from the parking lot to my son’s flag football game this morning, each step a reminder of my sneezy ways, I decided to follow my own advice and let the pain and discomfort in. No more fighting it, embracing it, calling it by name. Pain. I feel you. You hurt me with each stride. Come in and make yourself at home. I know you won’t stay long, and there’s no use denying you or wishing you were elsewhere.

It still hurt. A lot. Embracing pain and suffering sucks, man.

What a great reminder of mindfulness and a gentle rebuke of elevated expectations. Why was a part of me anticipating the pain to lessen simply because I acknowledged its presence? That’s not how this works, Boddhavista.

It’s reminded me that I’ve been a bit impatient and easily frustrated of late. Petty annoyances and meaningless inconveniences have bothered me, a cause-and-effect mentality developing where I was feeling put-upon. This has led to me spending way too much time thinking about me, with little regard to the troubles and suffering going on around me. Certainly not right-thought or right-action.

A lesson exists in my back pain, as I’ve struggled with simple tasks like putting on my pants and getting in and out of the car. It’s a lesson that entails understanding suffering in all of its forms and realizing that when I’m having a bad day, feeling all whiny and cranky, I need to look around and observe the pain and tribulations of others.

Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I should continue on my path to compassion and work to ease the suffering of others, because it is only by continuing my growth and healing during difficult times that I demonstrate my knowledge of the role of suffering in our lives.

The Buddha’s teaching on suffering is that we need to accept the things we can’t control, such as loss, sickness, aging, and death. This has been my reminder.

Knowing Yourself

For most of my life, introspection was something that I didn’t do very well, if at all. It seemed a little ego-centric, and not something that a strong, stable man would fritter away valuable time doing.

The consequence of that approach was two-fold – I relied on superficial thoughts and feelings to guide me, and I never really dug down far enough to actually discover what made me tick.

When you’re introspective, you open yourself up to uncomfortable feelings, and it can be both daunting and fear-inducing, especially for someone with anxiety issues. When you examine your inner-ugly, it’s easy to either attempt to justify the feelings that pop up, or smother them. Either way, those approaches can lead the same place – and denial ain’t just a river.

We spend so much time in a pitched battle with negativity. We try to eliminate it. We slap labels on it, like “bad” or “ugly” (see above). We push it down, repress it. We use it like lump coal to fuel the furnace of our self-loathing. But we never get to know it.

That means it’s possible we’re ignoring a portion of who we are. How can we claim to know ourselves at the same time we’re deliberately closing one eye to the parts we’ve tagged as negative?

In order to live life fully, we must embrace the totality of who we are – not just who we want people to think we are. This begins by giving ourselves permission to examine everything without assigning a value to it, like good or bad. It just is.

One way to accomplish this is to separate the thing from the feeling it causes in order to look at it objectively. Let me give you an example.

I sometimes look for problems where none exist. It can make me tired, frustrated, and angry.

Examination: Looking for problems isn’t inherently bad or evil. In fact, in some circumstances, it’s entirely appropriate. If I was auditing, or investigating, or troubleshooting something, looking only at what’s obvious or apparent would probably make people think I was incompetent or negligent. So the thing is neutral.

How I feel about the thing is a different matter. Why do I feel that way? What led me to go looking for a problem? Was it to keep my mind from dealing with something else? Perhaps I was reverting to past behavior of seeking out conflict as a way to demonstrate strength and control. Maybe my feelings are not about the thing at all, but rather what the thing might represent in my struggle.

When I look deeply inward, it requires a level of clarity and honesty that pushes me outside of my comfort zone. In going there, I’m forced to know the whole me, and once I understand myself holistically – all of the parts, and how they interact and conflict with each other – I come to terms with myself. I’m no longer concerned with comfortable or uncomfortable, with good or bad. By knowing myself, I’m not fixated on myself, which is an interesting dichotomy.

I’m not worried that something a co-worker says will make me feel insecure, or that a certain group or philosophy will make me uncomfortable. Because I have worked on knowing myself and my fears, there’s little chance that external factors will serve to trigger those fears, to kick off my anxiety. It’s almost like knowing myself makes me forget about myself, and instead focus outwardly.

Someday I’ll be really good at this. Until then, I’ve decided to embrace the learning. I’m a pretty interesting guy once I get to know me!