Happy Now? 10 Myths to Avoid
Have you heard about The Happiness Project? It’s a nonfiction book by Gretchen Rubin which enjoyed a good long run on the New York Times’ best sellers list. The author describes the book as “a memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, the current scientific studies, and the lessons from popular culture about how to be happy–from Aristotle to Martin Seligman to Thoreau to Oprah.”
From Julie and Julia to The Year Of Living Biblically there have been a lot of ‘live it and write it’ books out in the past couple of years but there is a special charm to the idea behind this one. Who wouldn’t want to be happier? There are a lot of theories about what makes us happy and if one person wants to test drive them for us, why not?
If you want to know what might make you happier, you’ll have to read the book but I was intrigued by a post on Gretchen’s blog that outlined ten things that didn’t work.
She writes:
Lately, I’ve found myself frequently discussing several of ten common myths about happiness, so I decided to post the complete list here.
- Happy people are annoying and stupid. This is an automatic assumption that many people make.
- Nothing changes a person’s happiness level much.
- Venting anger relieves it.
- You’ll be happier if you insist on “the best.”
- A “treat” will cheer you up.
- Money can’t buy happiness.
- Doing “random acts of kindness” brings happiness. The emphasis here is on the word “random.”
- You’ll be happy as soon as you… Falling into the “arrival fallacy” is something that many people (including me) recognize in themselves.
- Spending some time alone will make you feel better.
- The biggest myth: It’s selfish to try to be happier.
Do any of these resonate with you? I have definitely struggled with the “arrival fallacy” in the past. It’s so easy to think that happiness is a location, that it’s a place you’re just not in at the moment and if you could only get to it happiness would be there waiting. It’s a tempting delusion. But happiness is not a place you get to, it’s a choice you make.
I remember a while back, reading through a blog and thinking “she’s living my dream life” but it’s the other side of the thought that has stayed with me. Yes, it’s easy to look at someone else’s life and wish for it, but it’s also entirely likely that someone, somewhere thinks that I am living the dream life. Maybe you are living the dream too.
Even if your dream life is screaming and refuses to take a nap, or your world trip has stranded you in a scary train station late at night or your dream job has you at the office late, again. It’s a good life. If you’re reading this odds are really good that you had supper last night, and breakfast this morning. You, like me, got to sleep in a comfy bed in a dark and quiet room. There are clothes in our closets and dreams in our hearts.
If we keep waiting to get to happiness, we run the risk of wasting a lot of time, and a lot of life. There are seasons when happiness is incredibly scarce. When someone you love is sick, or someone breaks your heart, it’s pretty hard to be happy. But for most of us, on average day, there’s plenty of reason to be happy if we take the time to look, if we choose to seek it out.
Life is too short to be miserable unless you really, really have to be. Is there a moment in your day today that can make you smile? Are you getting in the way of your own happiness? Which of the 10 myths resonates most with you? Tell us in the comments.
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Tags: arrival fallacy, Culture, dreams, goals, Gretchen Rubin, happiness, happy, myths, Self, The Happiness Project
7 Responses to “Happy Now? 10 Myths to Avoid”
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Dear Sir/Mad.,
I would be very grateful if you get me one of your mentors, help me out in a hold lot of circumstances that I find myself in and is difficult to get out of it.
I am very happy, and I can vouch for the utter uselessness of the arrival fallacy. But 9? Not a myth. I like people all right, but without a certain amount of alone time, I start fraying at the edges.
There are no absolutes here. There are always a little more or a little less truth in these statements. For example to say that doing random act of kindness will make you feel happy cannot be totally a myth as much as saying ‘money cant buy happinese’ is a total lie.
i truly believe if we take the time to see that we have more to be thnakful for, than to complain about, we would be a “happier” people. Sometimes, when I am going through a situation, I sit and think about my day and what i had seen. One day when I did that, I remembered seeing a guy walking down the street…..with half of his face! I guess he didnt have enough money to get reproductive surgery. He has to live like that and go out in public in this cruel world. It could have been me with that tragedy, but it’s not! Thank God for what you do have, and be happy!
Mmmm, those “ten common myths about happiness” that woman wrote on the blog, are just signals remarking: Lack of Perspective and Lack of Sense of Mision.
To be sincere “my life sucks”, yeah that’s right, “my life sucks”. But even if it sucks that will never stop me. I’ve learn that life isn’t fair. But, I’ve learned too that when I use my inteligence to make the right decisions it becomes a little fair every time.
God put obstacles in life to unleash the best in us, when needed. Well, returning to our 10 myths.
Number 1.- When we think like this, we must be aware that we are under a bad attitude.
Number 2.- When we think like this, we’re conditioning ourselves to be miserable.
Number 3.- When we act like this, we are just attracting bad vibes and we must be prepared to be even more miserables.
Number 4.- When we insist on the best we are being irrational and as we can’t ever be that perfect mr. miserability awaits us at the end.
Number 5.- I don’t understand this. ¿A treat?
Sometimes, when bad things happens to us, they’re just like test that life bring upon us. So I learned the hard way to embrace those treats, because I know that inside grows a hidden chance to be better.
But really, I don’t understood the idea behind this quote.
Number 6.- Money can’t buy happiness, but, it helps a lot. anyway i think that money is “a way” not “a destination”. If you strive to be rich, and when that happens you’ll be happy, a lotto surprises awaits you along the way.
Because at the end there’s nothing.
This’s a pilosophycal matter, for me if every morning the sun rises i’ll be happy, the day that the sun stop doing that… that day I’ll be very sad.
Number 7.- Random acts of happines. “random”. This is useless and meaningless. Unless you feel them, unless they born in the center of your heart and your soul.
Those random acts of happiness become useless if you do them traying to appear cool in front of people.
Number 8.- “as soon as..” this is very popular. But, as soon as, never comes. and at the end we end feeling bad.
Life, taught me that “As soon as I start doing the thing that scares me the most, I start to feel better and more confident every time, and when that happens I feel good…. and good is brother of happy.
Number 9.- Might be, we must be aware that we are out worst enemies sometimes and our mind plays us a sort of tricks that makes us feel bad.
We must spend time alone to meditate, but must not isolate from the world.
Number 10.- That’s an idea that some people, specially the media, sell us. And we buy it without asking. I have so many things to give to the world, i think, and it will be selfish if i keep them just for me.
That’s real selfish.
I cannot control anything, you cannot control everything, because life’s random. Ups and downs, good and bad, pain and joy, tears and smiles, etc. everything is just a contrast.
what we must seek is not happiness but “a firm warrior attitud, perspective of life and to learn to see each problem as a test”.
Life’s just like the old game of Tetris. I like to see it that way. It is something like this:
Life throws me a line, then a block falls down, the screen is full of pieces and the pieces almost reach the top of the screen, aaaahh, aaaahh, and then another line comes down… to do a Tetris.
When I learn new moves to play life’s game, life became more fun.
Great article Mr. Claire Colvin.
To those that rode me, thanks.
I’ve gotta go right now but hey… why don’t you go out there to do some Tetris and tells us.
See ya !!
Nahum, I think you have misread this post. If you go back and look at it you’ll see that this is the author’s list of 10 things that DID NOT work, not 10 things that she claims will work. I disagree that “I cannot control anything, you cannot control everything”. There certainly are things that happen in life that are not under my control, but to completely remove any sense of responsibility seems foolish to me. There’s PLENTY that I can control. I choose whether or not to show up for work in the morning, whether or not to be kind to a stranger. I choose how I present myself to the world and how I talk about myself in my own head. I have control over how I receive the things that happen to me and how I will react to those “Tetris blocks” that come falling down. I control the way I move through my day and the effect I have on the people I come in contact with. Yes there are times when it is incredibly hard and maybe even inappropriate to be happy, but there are many times when I can choose how happy or unhappy I will be in my circumstances and as often as it is up to me, I choose happiness.
Evans, if you would like to talk to a mentor, just click on the link below, fill out the short form, and one will respond to you shortly, Thank you for visiting Power to Change.
http://powertochange.com/discover/talk-to-a-mentor/