I'm a real "show me" kind of person, and when people make blithe statements about how to become happier or how to ease suffering, I really need that information to have some backbone to it, some rooting in rational thinking. I recently came across a book called "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thnking," by Oliver Burkeman, which was right up my alley. He offers some surprising, well-researched and often counter-intuitive ways to become "happier" or at least less fixated on happiness. These are my synopses from the chapters of his book. See also "Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America," by Barbara Ehrenreich. And, while I was writing this, an article came out in the Atlantic called "There's More to Life than Being Happy." 1. Forget About Being Happy
Who says being happier is a worthy goal in the first place? Don't try to drown negativity out with relentless good cheer; it often has the opposite effect, as in the case of affirmations, which can make you feel disconnected from a cohesive sense of self. When experimental subjects were told about an unhappy event and then told not to feel sad, they felt worse than those who weren't given any instruction about how to feel. The suggestion is to stop chasing positivity so intently. As poet Jim Harrison says, "The over-examined life isn't worth living either."
2. Rehearse the Worst Case Scenario
Instead of positive visualization, which has recently been shown to reduce most people's sense of well-being, try regularly reminding yourself that you might lose any of the things you currently enjoy. This will make you love those around you all the more. Instead of reassuring yourself that everything will be all right (reassurance can actually exacerbate anxiety), know that when things go wrong, they'll almost certainly go less wrong than you were fearing.
3. Don't Use Meditation as a Way to Become Calm
Meditation has little to do with achieving any specific desired state of mind. Instead, the point of meditation is to learn how to stop trying to control one's experience of the world, to give up trying to replace unpleasant thoughts and emotions with more pleasant ones. These efforts make meditating a "happiness technique," a way of trying to cling to certain states and eliminate others. When you drop the pursuit of happiness, a more profound peace may result.
4. Drop the Goals
Ambitious and highly specific goals have been touted as the master key to a satisfying and successful life. What often motivates our investment in goals and planning for the future, however, is a deep discomfort with feelings of uncertainty, which cause us never to feel contentment in the present as we delay our happiness to an idealized future. Instead, you could be like a frog, sunning yourself on a lily-pad until you get bored; then, when the time is right, jumping to a new lily-pad, moving in whatever direction feels right.
5. Insecurity Has Benefits
Alan Watts said, "There is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity." When we try to achieve fixity in the midst of change, we separate ourselves from all that change. To seek security is to try to remove yourself from change, and thus from the thing that defines life. Watts: "A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest, in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet."
6. Embrace Your Failures
Every failure embodies its own story of sincere effort. Failure is everywhere. An openness to the emotional experience of failure can be a stepping-stone to a much richer kind of happiness than can be achieved by focusing only on success. Refusal to fail results in perfectionism, which is a fear-driven striving to avoid failure at all costs. Writes Natalie Goldberg: "Downfall brings us to the ground, facing the nitty-gritty, things as they are with no glitter."
