The truth about happiness

Warning, this entry contains harsh realities (and opinions) you may not want to hear. There, you've been warned:) *Disclaimer, if you have been diagnosed with depression, stop reading. This doesn't apply to you.

I am writing because I am really sad. Lately I have watched people I love destroy their families in the pursuit of happiness. Only problem is, they don't understand what happiness is let alone how to find it. Do I know it all? Of course not, but here are four things I do know.

1. The only person I can ever change is me.

When I first got married, I found things I wanted to change about my spouse. Dumb things, without any significance at all, but they drove me crazy anyway. That first year I became a different person. One he didn't recognize or want to be around. I screamed my frustration, I begged, I threatened. Then I was told to give 100% and he'd give it back. Never worked, I tried several times. Ten years later, he still leaves his socks all over the house and empty cereal boxes on the counter (I said they were dumb with no significance) but I don't scream, beg or threaten. Why? Because he wasn't the one that needed to be changed. It was me. Good thing too since the only person you can change is yourself. I decided one day that it wasn't going to bother me anymore. I didn't like getting angry and resentful so I stopped caring about those dumb things. I am much happier. I hope he is too.

Oh, and that 100% thing. People like to talk a good talk about it but they never explain how to do it. I always did it with the intent that I would get something back in return, like having him take out the trash without my mentioning it. The only way for it to work is if you give 100% without wanting anything in return! When Jason was home on leave for two weeks during the RLBT (Ridiculously Long Business Trip, i.e. 15 month long Iraq deployment), I gave it 100%. If he asked for a glass of water, I jumped up and ran to get it with a smile on my face. Why? Because I wanted his two weeks to be perfect, I wanted him to rest up, I wanted complete peace and tranquility in our home. I didn't want to waste a second of our precious time together. I decided that I would do everything in my power to not argue or have discord of any kind between us. That included doing whatever he asked with a happy smile on my face. After a week of this, he came into the kitchen and said the magic words I wasn't expecting to hear. In a slightly sheepish voice he said, "Did you notice, I took out the trash without being asked?" My response, "Huh? Oh, you didn't need to do that. Thanks." I was in shock. I didn't understand why he'd done that. Finally it sunk in. He did it because I was truly giving 100%. I was doing everything I could to make him happy but it was only a real 100% because I was doing it without wanting him to do anything in return. I just wanted absolute peace in our home for the brief two weeks we had him back. Why hadn't anyone ever explained that you had to do it without ulterior motive for it to work! It's a total waste of time without that one ingredient.

2. My side is green.

In order to be happy, you have to make a clear choice not to look at your neighbors lawn. People tend to look at their neighbors lawn and then compare their own brown spots to the neighbors green spots. You'll never be happy doing this. It will lead you to covet and be depressed. The remedy for this is gratitude ( and blinders). You need to always look at your own lawn and remark on the green spots. On occasion you can inspect the brown areas and see if there is some way to nurture it to a healthier state. Be grateful for your lawn and when you go on a walk around the neighborhood, put some blinders on. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

3. The When/Then Complex.

In college there was a time I found myself saying:
"When I finish this final, Then I will be happy."
"When Jason is home from his mission, Then I will be happy."
"When I am married, Then I will be happy."
"When I graduate, Then I will be happy."
"When I have kids, Then I will be happy."

I soon realized what I was doing and made a conscious decision to stop and be happy where I was. Having in a When/Then attitude is a sinister thought process that robs us of being happy now. It's a terrible cycle that has no end. The two ways to combat this complex is gratitude for what we have now and focus. If we are constantly focused on the future and being happy there, we totally miss out on what is good in our life now. It just gets so overshadowed by future possibilities. We end up being miserable now because we don't have what we are really focused on in our future. If we choose to focus on the positive things in our life now, we can be happy. If we choose to focus on what we don't have in our life now, we choose to be miserable. A practical application of this is to start a gratitude journal. Every day write down 5 things you are grateful for. In the beginning it can be hard but with a little practice you find it is impossible to limit your gratitude to just 5 things.

4. Fun does not equal Happy.

Is it possible to have fun and be happy? Absolutely, but they do not equal each other. This may be the harshest truth of all. In general we think that the words fun and happy are interchangeable. They are not. If you don't believe me or think I am wrong, then it's only because you haven't experienced the difference for yourself. I know this because once upon a time, I thought they were the same. Thirteen years ago when I was a brand new missionary, I got advice from an Elder that had been out in the mission field for more than a year. He tried to warn me that on a mission having fun and being happy weren't the same thing. I didn't understand what he was saying and thought he was crazy. I am sad that I can't remember his name, it was some of the best advice I ever got on my mission. I wish I could thank him.

Three months into my mission I was still a greenie. We were having a difficult time and took an hour off in the middle of the day. We hung out with the Elders in our area and played some games at a local arcade. Was it fun? Absolutely. After a while something bothered me. A feeling I couldn't quite grasp. I was unhappy. But how could I be unhappy if I was having fun? It didn't make sense. We weren't really being bad, just off task. The feeling wasn't guilt, it was definitely unhappiness. Weird. Later in my mission I had many opportunities to feel extreme happiness to the point of JOY, but they weren't necessarily times I was having fun.

Walking down a dark English street in the freezing cold, rain soaking me since I left my umbrella on the bus, again. Fun? No. Happy? Yes.

Sitting in a run down home, wreaking of unkept pets, urine soaked carpets, breathing through my mouth so I won't hurl from the smell. Fun? No. Happy? Yes.

Trying to share the gospel as little tyrants run screaming through the room, dirty nasty pets rubbing their nasty selves all over my skirt. Fun? No. Happy? Yes, and covered in dog hair. Gross.

Drinking bitter imitation orange juice from an unwashed glass with little sea monkeys floating in it so as not to be rude and offend my sweet host. Fun? NO! Happy? Disturbingly Yes.

Why was I happy? Because true happiness and joy doesn't come from pursuing fun. Never has and it never will. True happiness comes from God and we can only feel it when we are doing what we should, not what we want. He didn't give us commandments to lord over us and make us miserable subservient beings. He loves us and wants us to be happy above all else, so he gave us a cheat sheet on how to be happy, it's better known as the 10 commandments. God knows, if you follow these rules, you'll find true happiness. If you don't, you'll find true misery. It isn't even about Him rewarding or punishing us. It's simply the law of cause and effect and God has simply tried to give us a "heads up" on the issue.

Lastly, the greatest opponent to happiness is selfishness. President Hinckley's father once told him, "Forget yourself and go to work." I've learned that the reverse of that is also true. The greatest way to forget my problems is to first "go to work" helping someone else. Then, in the process, you forget yourself and all your own problems. They tend to pale in the shadow of what those around you are dealing with.

--Natalie