7 Habits of Highly Happy People

I write about happiness because I want more people to be happy. Many of us are chasing materialism, which is like chasing the wind. Others are playing status games, not realizing how brief life really is until death.

“So it is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil.” – Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

Questions about happiness lead to more questions: Is an idiot happier than a genius? If so, is ignorance bliss? If ignorance is bliss, is poverty happiness? If not, why do I have friends in Africa who make 10,000 Kwacha/day (~$2) who are happier than my multi-millionaire friends in the United States? Of course I’m making that judgment despite being no closer to defining happiness than I was a week ago—I use The Casablanca Test of SCOTUS fame circa 1964,  when Justice Potter Stewart wrote that “hard-core pornography” is hard to define, but I know it when I see it.

When we see people pumping their fists in exhilaration during sporting events, we know they’re experiencing pleasant sensations in their bodies. Is that happiness, or is that fun and excitement?

A World Series Story

Imagine you’re Alex Bregman in Game 5 of the 2017 World Series. Score is tied 12-12, two men on, two out, bottom of the 10th. You’re facing one of the best closers in baseball. He threw you a slider the last time you faced him and you ripped it, so you’re expecting a cutter this time. First pitch comes: it’s the cutter you’re expecting, thrown right over the plate. You swing and connect, the ball sails over the shortstop’s head and drops for a single. The third base coach waves home the runner from second base, as does your teammate, Carlos Correa, who has leapt over the railing of the dugout. A sold-out Minute Maid Park crowd erupts. Millions of people watching on TV scream. You’re very excited, but not because of the hit or the run scored. Not because you’ll never buy another beer in Houston as long as you live—your money will be no good. You’re actually reacting to the flood of sensations coursing through you: chills up and down your spine; waves of electricity washing over your body like three billion energy pellets dispersing within you.

You don’t have to hit a game-winner in the World Series to experience ecstatic sensations. If you get an unexpected promotion, or watch your 3-year-old daughter run into your arms when you get home from work, you’re feeling similar sensations. The depths of your mind don’t know anything about the World Series. They only know sensations. The downside is those sensations quickly subside and become unpleasant ones. One game-winner that produced excitement doesn’t make for lifelong happiness.

Evolution is to blame for our continual pursuit of sensational feelings. We’ve evolved to increase our likelihood of survival and reproduction instead of fun and excitement. If there was ever a koala-like mutation that ate leaves from a eucalpytus plant, then experienced blissful sensations similar to that of morphine or hitting a World Series game-winner, it wouldn’t have lasted long. Its fellow koalas that were hungry again in a few hours would’ve had a better chance of surviving, reproducing and passing their genes to the next generation. A perpetually high koala would have enjoyed a euphoric, but short-lived life.

Fun and Excitement vs. Happiness

Last week I wrote, “Perhaps Hollywood celebrities’ biggest contribution to humanity is to serve as an example that fame and fortune ain’t happiness.” Many movie stars become addicted to the short-term fun and excitement that drugs & sex often provide, which leads to unhappiness instead of happiness.

Charlie Sheen has said that he’s slept with over 5,000 women. He added that his promiscuity was fun at the time, but that it’s ultimately soulless. In 2011, his excessive drug use led to police taking his twin boys from his custody. That same month, he lost a TV show that paid him $1.7 million per week. Through it all, Sheen demonstrated that fun and excitement (#winning) isn’t happiness.

Russell Brand has become a de facto spokesperson for the miseries of drug dependence and “knowing” thousands of women. Bed-hopping and heroin nearly killed him. Brand now believes, “Happiness is being beautiful and friendly to people.” Like the rest of us, he must regulate his primitive desires. Brand, newly married, recently admitted, “I’ve still got a right flavor for the birds (women).”

Happiness requires self-control, work and wisdom. It can be found in gratitude, God, depth, relationships, having a family, etc. It is more correlative with the absence of desire than material wealth, vanity or one-upsmanship.

We must regulate our desires for fun and excitement because happiness discriminates—it’s bestowed only on those who engage in actions conducive to the attainment of survival and reproduction—the rest is fun and excitement. Unless you’re Alex Bregman, in which case your chances at reproduction probably increase in moments of fun and excitement too.

7 Habits of Highly Happy People:

1. Hand-write ‘thank you’ notes – even more powerful in the age of e-mail.
2. Write three different things you’re grateful for everyday. Gratitude is the root of happiness. It’s hard to be unhappy when you’re grateful all the time.
3. Pray and/or meditate. Prayer – quiet your mind, give thanks, connect with divinity & infinity. Meditation – helps with transcendence, observation of thoughts, impulse control.
4. Learn to say “No.” Set up boundaries. In most cases, you have no obligation to give an excuse for “No.” Happiness requires creating more time for yourself to pursue things that make you happy (reading, exercise, sleep, etc.) Remove “He/she makes me feel guilty” from your vocabulary. Don’t give someone that kind of power over you—it’s incredibly low-minded and unhappiness-inducing. Since you would never attempt to manipulate someone’s emotions that way, don’t spend time with people who would. Anyone who f*cks with you will see less of you—make it a rule.
5. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Closely related to number 4, if you “go along to get along,” you will be miserable and resent whatever/whoever you went along with. “Sorry, I can’t.” Move on.
6. Tell people you love and appreciate them. Go first. Who cares if they don’t say it back. You’re not seeking validation; you’re expressing yourself confidently and authentically. I will not go to my grave without every person who is closest to me knowing that I love them. Will you?
7. Sleep 7-9 hours. If you’re living on less, you’re not a badass, you’re a dummy. For benefits of sleep, listen to this life-changing JRE podcast with Matthew Walker, scientist and professor of neuroscience & psychology at UC-Berkeley. He researches impact of sleep on human health and disease.

The End of Happiness (for now)

My articles on happiness encourage the reader to consider the mind’s role in happiness. We cannot all be the same level of happy any more than we can all play baseball like Alex Bregman. We come to this life with different gifts. Be as happy as you can be.

Many people roll their eyes upon hearing, “Happiness is a choice.” It is a choice in the same way that fitness is a choice. You become fit by exercise, diet and sleep; you become happy by tending to your happiness daily.

I wish for you the right mix of fun (short-term) & happiness (long-term fulfillment) in this life, and that your week ahead be free from stress.