Two Secrets to Living a Happy Life
One of the most important lessons I learned very early in life came from a series of psychology studies that I read for entertainment. It talked about how the big troubles we face – the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the foreclosure of a home – are often overcome because our natural defense systems activate, causing our behavior to moderate with time so that we accept what has happened, rebuild, and put it behind us. The things that cause unhappiness that is both severe and chronic are not these major shocks; they are the small irritations that build up and wear away at you like Chinese water torture.
The example, if I recall correctly, was that a broken arm was far easier to deal with psychologically than a backdoor that squeaked loudly but was never fixed. Part of this is that the severity of the broken arm requires treatment whereas human nature being what it is, the door will always be put off to the imaginary realm of “someday”, which never arrives for most people. Long commutes to work, dirty dishes in the sink, never having enough pairs of socks when you get dressed in the morning … those are the things that will make you feel unhappy according to the research.
This was bolstered by a wonderful book I read years later, picked up as part of one of my many book runs, called Stumbling on Happiness that talked about the science of human contentment. It turns out that happiness is not something you acquire; for most people it is something that develops when there is an absence of negative events or frustrations. Another is the unexpected joys that confront you, which are often more important to the brain chemistry of happiness than huge events like winning the lottery. It sounds crazy, but that’s the data shows.
When setting up my life after college graduation, I decided that one of the things I was going to do when putting in place a self-reinforcing structure that governed my home and office life to take these lessons to heart. I did it by:
- Constantly filling my life with happy surprises
- Immediately removing any irritation that was big enough for me to notice more than twice
Each requires a bit of explanation and some examples. Please note that all of this assumes you are a well-adjusted, mentally stable person, as is most of the population. If you suffer from depression, bipolar disorder, or some other neurological condition, none of this is going to apply because there is a brain chemistry issue at play that make the rules of engagement entirely different for you. In that case, see a doctor and do something about it because the systems that work so well for others aren’t going to be effective on your own mind.
Fill Your Life With Happy Surprises
You want a stream of constant, happy surprises, personal, professional, financial, culturally, and bombarding you, day in and day out so that you find yourself going, “Oh, that’s nice” at least once every day or two.
Family and friends are important to me so I arranged my life to live near people I care about deeply. Not that long ago, we had some people over at the house and suddenly there was a knock at the door. My grandmother had decided she wanted to bake a ham for me and brought in this giant feast of a dinner “just because”. My niece would show up to the office and somehow convince me to stop working and, instead, watch videos of Disney World on YouTube for an hour. Our friends would stop by with their new babies or grab a cup of coffee. I’d go to lunch with people with whom I went to elementary school. I’d get a phone call and be told that I had to attend an art gallery showing because someone in my life was competing; next thing you know, you’re not only enjoying the exhibits, but everyone is out to dinner afterwards.
Proximity is important so being in a place where you are surrounded by those about whom you care can do wonders. If you don’t have that now, develop new relationships!
Imagine you hold 25 different stocks, each of which pay a quarterly dividend. That is 100 different times throughout the year of 365 days that you will wake up and suddenly find that cash has been deposited into your bank account.
A few days ago, I sat down at my desk and pulled up my family holdings to find that there was money sitting there, waiting for me to do something, from the cash Microsoft had deposited into our accounts as an owner of the business. Yesterday, there were new cash deposits from our ownership stake in McDonald’s. Wells Fargo & Company just announced a 20% hike in the dividend rate. Three days, three different, wonderful surprises that just show up. The reason this worked so well for me is I get obsessive about projects. When I’m learning how to cook, if I don’t get enough done in a day as I think I should have, it’s wonderful to sit down and see that, despite my absence, more capital piled up for me to utilize, just as if I had been at the office.
Go online, order yourself and your spouse a gift basket of your favorite things to be randomly delivered eight months from now … you’ll probably forget about it and when it shows up, it will be an unexpected surprise.
You get to the point where you instinctively, without realizing it, set yourself up for future payoffs. Then, it becomes a cycle.
Immediately Remove Irritations That Cross Your Radar More Than Twice
If it is important enough for you to notice more than twice, it’s important enough to fix. Do not put it off to “someday”. Schedule it in, on a specific date, at a specific time. One of my favorite thinkers suggested believing there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, if you don’t do it today it doesn’t count.
I was informed last night that the towels in the house are not up to standard after years of use so all of them are being thrown out and a new shipment arriving. It may seem like a small thing, but it now removes one flash of negativity when you reach for a towel after a shower and think, “Man … these have been around awhile.” We put a rule in place at home that if a pair of socks, no matter how nice nor how expensive, begins to wear thin, they are immediately thrown out before developing holes. No one will ever reach into a dresser in my home and be disappointed by finding something that can’t be worn. Again, by itself it seems insignificant, but it is extremely important in the aggregate.
Always running out of batteries? Setup an automatic refill order for large boxes of batteries from Amazon to ship on a regular schedule. Never have enough coffee? Setup your schedule so that on a certain time each week, you run by Starbucks and pick up some new coffee beans, like clockwork. Never have a pen where you need it? Put two there and never allow them to move, under any circumstances. Again, they seem so small, but in the aggregate, the results are enormous. Hot water heater not lasting long enough? Go get one of the new perpetual GE ones that heats water instantly so you never have to worry about it again.
Don’t like fighting? Don’t allow yourself to be around those who are hateful, cruel, or selfish, even if you are related to them or have known them for decades. At least 1% to 2% of the people you meet in life are miserable wretches. Run! If you come from a terrible household with abusive parents for whom nothing is ever good enough – stop calling them. Stop visiting them. Stop attending Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Just go away. Your misguided sense of loyalty is precisely that … you get to choose your family and friends. Being part of your life is a privilege. Likewise, others allowing you into theirs is also a privilege. To quote the wise RuPaul Andre Charles, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love anyone else?” You do not have to sit around and take all of this abuse that is heaped on you – just leave. You have to believe that you are worth that. You have to take ownership of your own life, not sit there resigned to fate.
Many of the projects you’ve seen in my life – from the minimalism inspired reorganization of the pantry to the going digital on books – happened because something irritated me and I thought, “There has to be a better way”. As I’ve gotten older, these things happen less and less because I’ve figured out how I want to live and what works best for me. Eventually, you’ll develop your own “rules for living” that maximize your personal enjoyment. Your list will be completely different from the list of many others.
(This brings up an important point – the single biggest contributor or disutility to happiness in your life is likely to be your choice in spouse. If you select someone who has a list that is in polar contrast to your own, you are stacking the board against you in a way that cannot be easily recovered. That doesn’t mean you necessarily have to find someone who is compatible with you on all things, only that you must create a system that accommodates the needs of both parties.)
It’s a Paradigm Shift in Thinking About Life
By studying the neuroscience of happiness (I think I was researching depression levels in Russia at the time, or maybe it was the role of genetics in self-motivation, but I can’t recall what got my on a kick about the brain; this was around the time I was reading almost everything I could on the physical wiring of the mind), it was this twin approach I developed for my own life that took me from an already very content person to a sometimes obnoxiously satisfied one.
The downside – or upside, depending on how you look at it – I’ve had more than one person say to Aaron and me, in so many words, “I can’t be around you. It’s my issue, not yours. Even when I stay at your house, everything just works. It makes me feel terrible about my life.” I will never understand that line of thinking (first off, I’m still figuring out a lot of the systems – I’m nowhere near where I’ll be in the end, God willing – get back to me when I have a hidden helipad at the bottom of a volcano bunker) because it’s not an accident! You have to arrange the system of your life, actively arrange, around self-reinforcing cycles that will constantly remove the irritations, and constantly produce unexpected joys. There is nothing we’re doing that someone else can’t do in this area of behavior. It isn’t going to happen by magic.
Disappointments will come. Heartache will come. Tragedy will come. But living itself is an art. Why set yourself up for failure? Just as with investing, you need to arrange the entire system to maximize the probability of a favorable outcome. You can’t “be happy” in the sense that it is something that is acquired … instead, you can remove the things that cause unhappiness, and increase the things that bring you joy. Happiness is what develops; like a flower growing out of the soil; a by-product of the right conditions.
Header Image Licensed through Adobe Stock Images. Post image is a free download from All-HD-Wallpapers.
Reader Comments (20)
Comments are presented chronologically, with replies indented beneath the comments to which they respond.
Gilvus
March 16, 2013
[Insert deity here], grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.
...and no, I wasn't ever part of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Jason Spacek
March 16, 2013
I've been noticing lately that a lot more than 1-2% of people, probably at least 15% of the people that I encounter, are utterly miserable. Perhaps they're not miserable AND wretched, and I don't actively seek them or try to associate with them much, but they're the kind of people that are being referred to when one says "Haters gon' hate."
And a lot of haters are hatin' these days..
Gilvus
March 16, 2013
Replying to Jason Spacek
It's very possible that:
1) These people have always existed, but the internet has given them a platform to express their self-loathing to the world. The vocal minority is now louder than the content majority, so maybe we have a skewed view of the haters.
2) People are becoming more miserable, because we're "connected" all the time via social networks, but we only see cherry-picked postings of our friends' accomplishments, vacation photos, relationship progress, etc. A study out of Stanford goes as far as to suggest that Facebook makes us unhappier because we get a skewed perception of how happy other people are.
And of course, these two are not mutually exclusive. Both only serve to amplify insecurities already inherent in every human being.
TL;DR: Schadenfreude.
Jason Spacek
March 16, 2013
Replying to Gilvus
Indeed, Gilvus, but I was referring to 15% of everyone I encounter in real life. I do reside in a somewhat economically depressed area, so that might explain some of it, but even when I travel I just see a lot of unfounded misery in a lot of people's lives.
Gilvus
March 16, 2013
Replying to Jason Spacek
Actually, I was commenting on how the internet is changing social norms. For all the great things that the internet has done for human societies...this is one of the nastier side effects.
Think about it this way: it's great that you can find new information to debunk old beliefs...but humans are naturally social creatures. If you're a hater and you're capable of finding others who feel the same way you do, you feel like your beliefs are vindicated. Instead of eradicating disinformation and victim mentalities, the internet actually allows these people to connect to each other, which entrenches the hater mentality more. As a result, people now have an incentive to stay where they are due to confirmation bias.
It may be farfetched, but so far that's the only explanation I can come up with. I hope you or someone else can put forth a less negative explanation 🙁
weixiluo
March 17, 2013
Replying to Gilvus
I think it has to do with this one : https://www.joshuakennon.com/5-reasons-people-believe-crazy-things/
The fifth point, denial, is the most dangerous one of all. People go crazy because of it. They become miserable. People lose control of their livesé And there's virtually no way out of a denial circle once you're in. It's exactly why "hater's gonna hate".
Shouganai
March 18, 2013
Replying to Gilvus
This isn't a "less negative" explanation - but I suspect that the internet acting as an engine of "victim mentality entrenchment" is less of a problem than a mainstream, 'real-life', culture which paints people as worthless unless they can find a job/ win/ etc. etc.
Gilvus
March 18, 2013
Replying to Shouganai
You're absolutely right, but it's always been that way. I'm simply proposing something in response to Jason's post that this is more prevalent than before. Whether or not his observation is correct may or may not be valid to begin with...but I like thought experiments.
Shouganai
March 20, 2013
Replying to Gilvus
Mainstream attitudes to work may or may not have changed - but the position of labour has certainly deteriorated - hence misery. Un or underemployment isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself -
but when combined with economic attitudes more appropriate to the 19th century... result not good.
Investfourmore.com
March 16, 2013
I completely agree. We have such a huge impact on how happy we are and how we live our lives. So many people just go with the flow and assume they have no control.
peterpatch79
March 16, 2013
I take a different route to happiness and try to be happy with what I have. I figure I have true control over very little, my integrity, the amount of effort I expend, my thoughts to a certain degree etc. For example I have a 5 year old computer at my desk. It took many people to get the raw materials and process them into the computer components that I used to assemble this computer. On top of that there are ongoing processes (power, Internet, software updates) that have to happen in order for this system to work properly. The computer system gives me an easy way to access the Internet, do my taxes, calculate theestimated intrinsic values of company's etc. If I didn't have it I would be doing my taxes by hand, learning things by going to the library and calculating intrinsic value by hand in a slow and plodding way. I , more then likely , wouldn't have time to do all the things I can do on my computer without it therefore it really does save me time. Then I think about my ancestors, people in poor countries, people with disabilities preventing them from using a computer and it gives joy that I am fortunate enough to have been able to access this wonderful technology at a reasonable price. I find not many people think about things this way, but it works for me.
Essentially I am trying to short circuit hedonic adapation whereby people will adjust their baseline of happiness to whatever life throws at them. I will have to put the book stumbling on happiness on my reading list.
Gilvus
March 16, 2013
Replying to peterpatch79
In short, count your blessings. Get off the consumption treadmill. I like that. To this day, I've never picked up SMS or 3G. You wouldn't believe the ribbing I get from people, but I never thought the utility was worth the opportunity cost of saving or investing...not at my age.
But sometimes being a stick in the mud keeps you from streamlining your workflow. While there's a charm in doing things the old fashioned way...it's often inefficient.
peterpatch79
March 16, 2013
Replying to Gilvus
I am not saying to be a luddite but often people equate happiness with new stuff. This of course means that 'new' eventually becomes old and therefore something else must fill the 'new' void in order for more happiness to happen. I am sure if my computer starting smoking or got too slow I would upgrade or put together something faster. However if I use negative visualization to think about what it would be like without a computer it makes me happy about what I have , essentially for free, whereas buying a new imac would make me happy for about 3 months and cost me thousands of dollars that I could have used towards my primary life goal (extremely early retirement from my 9-5).
Gilvus
March 16, 2013
Replying to peterpatch79
I'm not criticizing, by the way. We're on the same page here. If I need something, I always try to see if I can find it refurbished first. I just can't get over the fact that the moment I lay a finger on something "new", it's now "used."
peterpatch79
March 17, 2013
Replying to Gilvus
@ Gilvus: I just want make sure I am not confused for just being a cheapskate or something. I would rather buy something that costs more if I know I will use it and it will have a lower amortized cost then something lower quality with a cheaper upfront cost. Moreover I look at personal cost reduction like Pareto would and my 3 biggest expenses are housing, transportation and food. Therefore I rent an apartment (~16% of my income), use the bus or bike to work and grocery shop at places like Costco where possible. I find I am just as happy as most people who own too much house, drive fuel inefficient over priced cars and eat out at restaurants regularly. On top of this I save more as a % of my income, get great exercise biking or walking to bus stops and eat very well and have been losing weight as a result. Whenever I can find actions that combine personal goals it is a big win. For example biking to work = transportation, exercise, saving money, getting some nature and often fun that's 5 wins vs the 1 or 2 I would get driving myself. The exercise alone beats the convenience of driving by an order of magnitude. In fact it is my belief that health should be everyone's base goal because it is required in order to fully enjoy everything else in life and the more of it you have the more enjoyable everything else is. There is no multiplier like health, If I could have 100 million dollar in exchange for living half as long and being overweight and sedentary for the rest of my life I would keep my health, it's way more important then money.
Paarthurnax
March 17, 2013
Great post, Joshua, thanks for sharing. I agree 100% and have always put in the effort to make life comfortable for myself and my family.
I was a little surprised to see the results of the study you mentioned, but it makes sense. We can overcome some amazing things in life. Like pretty much anyone else in the world - I've lost close relatives, some due to cancer, heart disease or even just old age. Even tramatic things that happen to you, personally, can be overcome surprisingly easily.
Case in point, in September of 2012, I was helping my Dad get his house ready to be sold (lives in a rural area and has a fairly large piece of land for 1 person to take care of). Anyway, to make a long experience short, we were in the middle of doing some yard work when a shot went off and went through my leg. It took over 25 minutes for the police to arrive to the house, because the shooter started shooting at them when they arrived. He shot at other random cars passing by his property from the woods as well. The police eventually were able to get up to the house and extract me and my family, while the standoff which eventually ended with the guy being killed by police. He was a 60 year old man, who they assume was seeking suicide-by-cop. I never met him before, never see nhim before, and yet he shot me, and shot at my wife and two kids.
You can beat yourself up a bit trying to understand all the question marks going through your head at a time like that, but it doesn't take too long until you don't think about it very often and you look back on it like any other time in your life and kind of chuckle saying 'didn't expect to experience that in my life'.
Like the study indicates, looking at myself, I see that it's the smaller things that bother me the most (though getting laid off recently, certainly hurts the pocket book and causes some stress at the moment lol). The dishwasher door being finicky, lack of organization around the house, etc... they cause that super-mild irritation that has the tendency to fester and generally drags down your quality of life.
Anyway, I love this post, and would love to see more like this in the future (along with some more case studies of, say, Wells Fargo haha) Thanks again, Joshua!
Shouganai
March 18, 2013
Great post
Cai Phillips-Jones
March 25, 2013
I like this post. I think that the science of happiness is in its very early infancy. I'm glad that you have found some success with it. However, I do wonder if your disclaimer concerning people with neurological conditions is useful or necessary. For one, 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with a mental illness in their lifetimes, but I think it is safe to say that more than half the population could benefit from your ideas. Contrary to the idea that chemical "imbalance" means a completely different way of life, facilitating organizational skills is a crucial part of many cognitive therapies.
Also, stereotype threat, in which a person expects to confirm a negative stereotype about their group, can be a serious obstacle to rehabilitation. A person may decide they will fail at a task before they set out. The act of labeling someone with a "condition" is sticky business.
Perhaps I read into your statement too much, but I think you are buying into the false dichotomy of mentally ill and healthy people. Mental wellness is really on more of a spectrum, and there is significant overlap in ability between those who have been diagnosed and those who never will. All that said, I love your ideas about motivation and will be sure to give them a shot. You are clearly a very finely tuned thinking machine... we all should take a lesson.
I wish you luck in your own pursuit of happiness. The sky isn't even the limit.
Joshua Kennon
March 25, 2013
Replying to Cai Phillips-Jones
Great comment. I can see how it might appear the way you took it; I should have been more specific. When I wrote the passage, I was thinking of severe clinical depression more than anything. There seems to be a lot of the general public who thinks people can "snap out of it", or just "look on the bright side". In such a case, it is an actual medical condition, not just a bad outlook on life. Though I've never seen it in my immediate family, I've had some extended family that suffer from it and it's a very real thing. Just because we can't see it, like you can a broken arm, doesn't mean it isn't real.
On a side note, I do wonder about a society that labels half of the population with a condition. At the present moment, I'm of the camp that a lot of the things that have been made pathological are really just various manifestations along a Gaussian distribution of normal genetic human outcomes that are, perhaps, being noticed more because the fundamental nature of human life has changed in a post-Industrial world. Think about hyperactive boys in elementary school or junior high. A lot of them are now pumped up with chemicals and given a condition name, when three hundred years ago and throughout all of human history before that, they wouldn't have been told to sit neatly in rows, under artificial lights, for hours at a time. They would have been out on the plains, learning to hunt, or working in a shop, learning to build, or apprenticing under a lawyer, learning to persuade. Human DNA hasn't changed much, but the conditions around us have. The problem isn't so much with the boys wanting to run around, it's the fact that there is now no longer an acceptable, productive outlet for it to happen.
Guest
March 25, 2013
I love these 'life' posts of yours. They constantly reinforce the 'why' behind the financial how. You're possibly the greatest lifestyle role model I have. I have TOTAL and utmost respect for the control you have over your life, and am striving to have just the same.
The part you said about staying with abusive parents really hit home for me. I'm still living at home and feel like a child. If I don't wake up 'on time' (for nothing), I get water splashed in my face. If I lock the door, it's bashed (hard) until I open it. I could be watching a movie when one of them comes in and insists I drop everything and write an email for them, which can take up to 40 minutes. It's really wearing me down. I literally had to lie down the other day because I was so mentally exhausted. The cool part is, I know I can move out. I know that I'm the one putting myself through this. I know things don't have to be this way. I look at you, and I know that they can be however I want them to be.
*Do you have a page where you list recommended reading? (i.e. Stumbling on Happiness) - If not, I would love to know which books you think everyone should read (or at least, people who want to be like you).