Science, Religion, Politics and in the pursuit of truth – HappyPsychotic

Choose Happiness

// January 27th, 2009 // GlenncloseAuthor: Glenn Name: Glenn C
Email: happypsychotic@gmail.com
Site: http://www.happypsychotic.com
About: Glenn is 36 years old and now lives in a small town in Northern Ontario with his wife of 13 years and 2 kids. He has been a foster parent for 10 years in 3 different cities. He graduated from Radio College of Canada (Toronto) in 1993 as an Electronic Engineering Technologist and has been working in the electronics industry ever since with companies like Nortel. Glenn does a good amount of reading, studying and thinking about such topics as philosophy, psychology, physics (Quantum Mechanics), religion and science. Glenn does have an I.Q. of > 140 (as does Chris) which is categorized as genius but hasn't bothered joining any I.Q. type clubs. He is very logical and analytical and always looking for a way to make a better world - primarily through self-improvement and in helping others to improve themselves. Most importantly, he constantly re-evaluates his priorities and ensures his time is spent wisely - like working on this site.See Authors Posts (92)

Most of you have been taught never to say “He makes me so mad!” because you shouldn’t allow a person to have such control over your life.  When somebody behaves in a way that you find annoying, you can choose to get angry about it, or you can choose to deal with the situation in a number of different ways, many of them calmly and rationally.  I first learned this about 15 years ago when studying “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, and it has served me well over the years.

Now please keep in mind that I am not talking about suppressing my anger like Kramer’s “Serenity now” bit on Seinfeld, but actually changing my thinking about a situation so that I don’t get angered at all.

So I got to thinking lately, that this same principle may also be used in an opposite manner regarding happiness.  It seems to me that the great majority of us are only happy when external events dictate it.  i.e. When something “good” happens to us, it causes us to be happy.  So I’m wondering if we really need to wait for these “good” things to happen before we get happy.  Can’t we choose happiness?

This idea can be approached in many different ways – I’ll start by talking about brain chemicals.  If you look at feelings in a strictly analytical way, you could say that you feel a certain way because your brain has created a certain chemical reaction that has produced this feeling.  And by taking one step further back in time, you can say that your brain did this because of the way it interpreted its inputs from the world. (sights, sounds etc.)  So it seems straightforward that you can change your feelings simply by changing the way your brain interprets its inputs.  For example, when someone close to you dies, you can be extremely distraught, sad and upset, or, if you believe they are experiencing intense joy in heaven, you can feel happy – it’s all in how your brain interprets the world around you.

Another interesting fact about the brain is that as its neural pathways are used more often, these paths get stronger, bigger and faster.  (this is why it gets easier and easier to perform a task the more often you practice it, and why it’s so hard to break habits)  To apply this idea to this topic, I am thinking about choosing happiness when you are feeling normal, and causing this happiness feeling to become strengthened and therefore more common and easier to achieve.

If you’re wondering how to “choose happiness”, the answer is simple:  just remember something or some time when you felt happy, and dwell on it.  The longer you can hold on to that happy feeling, the more that neural connection will be strengthened and the more common it will become.

I’m going to make some somewhat cynical predictions about this advice:

1. Most people can’t be bothered to read something this long.
2. Of those that read this, most have a hard time comprehending what I’m saying so will forget it shortly.
3. For that extremely small percentage that have read and understood, (congratulations!) some disagree, (I would love to hear from you because I want to learn!), some agree but can’t be bothered (usually because you are “too busy” or say you “don’t need it” – cop out), and the last of you will hopefully improve your lives with this idea as I hope I am.