How to Be Happy Without Even Trying: Part I

Don't Hold So Tight To 'Happiness'

        In my last post, I said that seeking only personal happiness as a driving force in our lives didn't work, as least for marriage.  I think it works that way for pretty much everything.  I'm not saying that you should follow the advice of the bumper sticker "Since I gave up hope, I feel much better."  Well, kinda, but not quite.  What I am saying is that trying so hard to have only pleasure in life is like chasing a high on drugs.  You can find it for a minute, but then is slips away, and you never get the same high from those same things again.  Personal happiness is kind of like wet soap; the harder you hold onto it, the faster is slips out of your fingers.

What in the Name Of Materialism Do You Mean?

Nice place to visit... But do you want to live here?

        Here's an example.  I think most of us picture our ideal retirement as something like the picture on the left there.  You know, pina coladas in a hammock by the sea, watching the sun set; no worries, no lingering obligations.  Just taking it easy.

        That's the problem.  We think this will make us happy because we think that hard work, responsibilities and difficulties are things we don't like.  What if all you did every day was exactly what you felt like doing?  Just relax.  You want food?  You can pay somebody to fix it for you.  Don't feel like cleaning?  That's okay, the maid will do it for you.

        In reality, most of us would hate living that way for long.  We get depressed.  We get anxious.  Think of those days that you sleep late, do nothing, talk to nobody, and realize right before bed that you are still in your pajamas, never showered, and your house is dirty because you haven't cleaned up after yourself.  If you are anything like me, you feel filthy, bloated, smelly, and stagnant.  Imagine that, year-round.  Even if we shower, clean up, etc, if we actually spend all our time seeking pleasure, we feel that our life has no meaning.

Examples, please?

See how they are living the
American dream?

        Think of any person you know who 'has it all.'  Are they happy?  Good heavens, man! Are you daft? Have you ever been to Walmart?  There are whole magazines dedicated to chronicling the unhappiness of their lives!  How many times have you heard about celebrity suicides, attempted suicides, breakdowns, break-ups, or any other bad news?  Okay, sure, there are tons of factors.  Artists tend to be less emotionally stable, lots of other things you could mention, but if money and luxury were all that we needed to make us happy, wouldn't you expect money to fix a few things for these people?


        Dave Ramsey is a self-made millionaire who found out about money and happiness the hard way.  He went bankrupt.  He now tells people all he can about wealth; how to get it, and what it doesnot do.  To paraphrase him, 'Money doesn't make you happy; it makes you more of what you are.'  So he says that if you are a happy poor person, you will be a happy rich one.  If you are an unsatisfied poor person, you will be an unsatisfied rich one.

        Jack Dorsey (co-founder of Twitter and Square Up credit card readers,) makes this point particularly clear.  In a podcast of a business lecture series at Stanford, he talks about how he was newly a millionaire, sailing around the world in his private yacht, and discovered that he was disgusted with his life as it was.  So he came home and founded another company.  He talked about how hard it is to found a business, no matter how much money you have, but how surprisingly that was what he wanted.

In Your Face, Freud!

        Viktor Frankl, a psychologist/neuroscientist who wrote one of my favorite books ever, "Man's Search for Meaning," was a Holocaust survivor.  He wrote about his experiences, and what he learned about human nature while he was
there.  In particular, he explained how cigarettes were craved by all the inmates, as most were addicted to tobacco, and so they were used as currency, to be saved and spent carefully.  Nicotine eases anxiety.  Frankl said that you could tell when a man had given up on life when he began to smoke his cigarettes.  Now pay careful attention to what I just said.  He claims that when a man began to actively try to escape the stress and pain of the camp, seeking the pleasure and relief of anxiety provided by his cigarettes, it was when he had lost the will to live.  We survive if we have fight, if we are not afraid to accept pain, and if pleasure is not our driving force.  (*cough*In your face, Freud!*cough*)

        Now, Freud and Darwin tell us that seeking pleasure is what keeps us alive.  What does Frankl find keeps us alive?  He put it this way; "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how.'"  He says the ones to live were those with a meaning greater than themselves to live for.  A son, a wife, or in Frankl's case, a life's work in the field of human mental health to publish.  Those were the ones that lived.  Not the ones that sought only for their own comfort and to avoid their own pain.  Darwin calls for survival of the fittest, and apparently the fittest think in a bigger picture than the one they see in their mirror.

If this is your reason to live, your odds of surviving Auschwitz just dropped.

        In short, we don't seek 'happiness' as we usually use the term.  We don't need to have pleasure in order to survive.  We don't need ease or comfort.  We need a meaningful life.  We are survivalist philosophers.  We seek meaning in order to live.

So What is a 'Meaning' to Live For?

        That is an excellent question.  Going back to Frankl, "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked."  I think that this is a discovery that takes a lifetime.  I think that Maslow had some ideas, about becoming our best self, fulfilling our potential, or as he called it 'self-actualization,' but I think that his concepts are a little too inward-focused.  

        I'm sure my answer as to what makes a life meaningful will never be complete until my life is over, so in the meantime I'll just a list few key points that I've found so far:

• Challenges:  In every movie, every book, every captivating work of fiction, there is a problem.  There is conflict.  Without that, why would we care?  We are intrigued by it.  When we have leisure time (when we aren't busy facing our own conflicts,) we entertain ourselves by reading of conflict elsewhere.  The more dire the circumstance, the more exciting the story.  I think it is the same in our own lives.  If we aren't challenged; if everything is easy, we feel that there is a lot of meaning missing in our lives.
• Progress: I think this is what challenges give us; growth.  The excitement of a child at learning to walk, or a chemistry student learning to make his mixture change color, or even the bodybuilder breaking his previous record.  We want to be more today than we were yesterday. 
• Connection to other people:  This is so many-fold that you will have to imagine most of it.  Sometimes this is family and loved ones.  Sometimes, like in Frankl's case with his research, it is all mankind.  In whatever way, we feel worthwhile when we are sacrificing anything (time, effort, money, even just thoughts,) to others.  In the concentration camps, it was easier for people to forget their own hunger when working hard to satisfy the hunger of others.  This is why my contradictory advice to many unhappy people is, "forget about trying to fix your own problems; go help somebody else fix theirs."  It's amazing how well it works.  

        Most of the songs, stories and poems we find especially beautiful, touching, or meaningful fit in these categories.  The movie "Life is Beautiful" which is a story full of funny and joy, but also very full of sorrow and strife.  Or the poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley.  

        So really, my opinion is that you don't care nearly as much as you think you do about living a life that is carefree and free from want.  I think you care far more about living life so as to feel that you are a worthwhile human being that makes the world a better place.  And the best way to do that is to forget about you.  

        Ultimately, I believe that a life is best lived when it is given to others.  So how do you be happy?  Stop trying to look for it so hard for yourself, and you'll be surprised to find the nobility in minor day-to-day struggles and sacrifices for others.  Don't keep score, imagine that you have an infinite obligation to the people around you, and you'll stop caring as much what you have or don't have, what goes wrong in your life.  Get out of your head and over yourself.  There are over 6,000,000,000 other people on the planet.  Go make a difference to more than just the one that is reading this blog.

and What is the Comparison to Drugs?

Yeah, that is comparison to drugs is completely literal.  (Well blast me to next birthday, I'll have to finish this tomorrow... My brain goes to bed at the same time no matter when my body does.)  

Darwin and Divorce.

Put Two Monkey Traits on Low Heat, Stir Occasionally.

        So this guy here is Darwin.  Now, I'm just a little ancy right now, because I can feel the militant Darwinists and Anti-Darwinists (Darwinians?  Darwinese?) both waiting to attack as soon as I say anything.  Easy now, fellas.  I ain't lookin' for trouble.  I'm not going to say whether we came from monkeys or no.  I'm just going to talk about how he ruins marriages.

         Yep.  Thasswright.  See, Darwin said that the only creature that would survive were ones with certain traits, and they passed on those traits to their little baby creatures.  Say, all the animals that like to eat live, and the ones that hate eating, die.   Freud loved these concepts, and said, "Yes! That is why we find pleasure in eating, and experience the pain of hunger when we don't!"  And thus the Pleasure Principle was born.   Most psychologists believe that most of what we do can be 100% explained by our evolutionary desire to feel good and not feel pain.

Sprinkle in Powdered-wig Philosophers

         Mix in some philosophy, (please don't leave just because I said philosophy!  I promise not to talk about it long!) like Thomas Hobbes, who says in "The Leviathan" that 'good' means getting what you want, and 'bad' means pain.  So he says without laws we all try to force what we want out of each other and spend the whole time fighting, and the big guys win until somebody makes a government, and they tell us what is 'good' and 'bad' by making laws for us to follow or else.  (Okay, political junkies, go stand over by the people that want to fight about Darwin.  I promise this isn't a post about the role of government.)

         Locke hated the idea that we needed a guy to bash us over the head to make us get along.  He figured we all would do it voluntarily once we saw how much it helped us individually be safe and helped us stay free to follow our dreams.

        So what?  Why the old dead philosopher's disagreement?  Well, no matter which one you pick, you obey the government so you can get what you want.  Same with Adam Smith's work,which would later play a big role in the creation of American Capitalism; you work to get more stuff for you, and that='good.'  Same with most religions; you follow these rules to get what you want from God.  Did you catch that?  They way we think about religion, political philosophy, science, psychology, it all tells us that the way to be happy is to seek pleasure for yourself.

Drizzle Over Children, Marinate for Centuries

         So here we are, centuries later, having been taught all these things for years and years.  My guess is that most of us recoil at the idea that Americans believe that we are only supposed to do things that serve us selfishly.  We don't like to think of ourselves that way.  Yet what is the "American Dream?"  May I suggest that it looks like this: 

        We dream of being able to satisfy all our own desires, and gain as much power as we can.  We idolize people who have enough money that they don't need to do anything.  We teach our businessmen to force suppliers and employees to accept as little payment as possible, and force customers to pay as much as possible for the same thing; not to try to help everybody get the best deal out of the whole arrangement.

        We are taught of Darwin in elementary school, Locke and Hobbes in history, blessings and punishments at church, and commissions and bottom lines at work.  Everywhere, we are told that 'good' means ease for me, comfort for me, satisfied appetites for me, and that is why we work, eat, marry, go to church.  We do everything we do so that we can 'feel good.'   The underlying assumption from all these lessons is that if it is hard, or painful, or doesn't serve me, then it is not 'right.' 

Add A Little Disclaimer, Season to Taste...

        Now, I am a capitalist.  I think that Darwin was right about many things, and can see many evidences of evolution.  I am a Christian, and believe that it brings me happiness.  I actually really like both Hobbes and Locke, and tons of other philosophers.  Freud, well, okay, I don't like him very much.  I believe that business is not evil, and neither is wealth and profit.  I say that personal ambition is a good thing.  I just believe that these things only work right when we have a larger picture than "me."  I mean, they do inspire hard work, creativity, many other good things.  I believe that most of us are good people, and care about others around us.  Yet when many of us stop and think about the big things in our lives, we think almost entirely, "is this working for me?" I think we give too much weight to "is this working for me?"  rather than "is this working?"

Dissolve Marriage in the Mixture, and Serve.  Makes 2,000,000 Annually.

        Okay, you all see this punch coming.  So these founding American principles get misapplied in marriage.  Marriage is not and cannot be about the "me."  That kind of self-focus kills marriages.  Here is a list of Top 10 reasons for divorce: 

1. Lack of communication.  

2. Finances. 

3. Feeling constrained. 

4. Trust. 

5. Expectations from each other. 

6. Your spouse doesn't understand / fulfill your needs and desires. 

7. Quick change in lifestyle. 

8. Insecurity. 

9. Religious and cultural differences. 

10. Abuse. 

        What a list of ME, ME, ME.  Not all of these are always caused be selfishness alone, but there are elements of it in almost every one of these.  Here's the subtext:

1. Lack of communication.   Sometimes this means they don't know how to communicate, but usually one or both partners just become less invested in the other; less focused on finding out what the other person thinks or feels, more on self.  We seek to be understood, not seek to understand. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you over all the things I want to say."

2. Finances.  Either one person is spending too much the way that they think it should be spent, or they feel that they never have the money for the things they want to buy.  Stress arises as blame for my unhappiness is thrown around.  This isn't always the way.  Being broke can cause a lot of stress, and spawn disagreements.  (Ask me how I know!)  Still, you can see how it's less of a problem when seen as our problem rather than your fault.

3. Feeling constrained.  In other words, "I don't get to do the things I want."  I hate the nickname "ball-and-chain," even as a joke.  Your spouse is your teammate.  Sometimes this feeling of being limited by your spouse is real; there are some truly controlling people in the world (you know, ones interested only in self?) but I think there are a lot of molehills made into mountains by people who don't get that working relationships mean sacrifice.  

4. Trust.  When you can't trust the other partner to keep both of your best interests in mind, instead of acting selfishly. 

5. Expectations from each other.  Expectations of stuff you should do for me.   

6. Your spouse doesn't understand / fulfill your needs and desires.   This is the big one.  Do I really need to say more?  "You aren't serving my happiness." 

7. Quick change in lifestyle.  Here, the explanation from the website is all I need. "Couples that can’t compromise and meet in the middle are unable to adapt to new changes and be together in harmony."  (Italics added.)

8. Insecurity.  When one partner is selfish, the other will often not feel that the relationship is stable.  Same thing if one partner has an unrealistic idea of what the other is supposed to give.

9. Religious and cultural differences.  Okay, this one is different, and complex.  Some of them are moral standpoints, others can seem that way.  Still, some of it can be unwillingness to compromise for selfish reasons.

10. Abuse.  Abuse is one person trying to get what they want out of the other at the expense of the other. Pure and simple.

        There you have it.  We are taught that, by nature, we are alive and survive to seek pleasure; our own needs.  All that we do is to serve that as the greatest good.  What are the ways we say "I love you"?  I need you.  You make me happy.  You are everything I ever wanted.  Most chick flicks have lines of a guy pleading a girl to take him back because "Since you left, I've cried every night, food has no taste;"  ....So please come back to end my pain and make me happy.   We have selfish reasons to love hidden in our cliche lines of love; the one thing that is supposed to be selfless.  Given this education in love and right and wrong, is it any wonder we have trouble seeing reasons to stay in marriage when the going gets tough?  That's my theory, anyhow.  Tons of other factors, but I think this is the bottom line.  My voice is one in the millions on this issue; take or leave it.

        So then you must ask... If not for our happiness, why?  If we don't follow religion, get married, get a job, work for happiness or for our own good... Why?  Should we seek pain and misery, or what?  Tune in tomorrow and find out. Well, maybe not tomorrow. I think I might give serious stuff a rest until next week. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

What, for the love of all that is ridiculous, is this blog about?

Happy Thursday!

...Okay, fine, how would you have started this post?

         So.... I have given very few clues as to what this blog will be about.   I will try fill you in without being boring.  I am a guy who has way to many interests to be considered healthy.  This will be a conversational blog about interesting facts about all of them.  Brains, fiction books, the science of the human body, religion, how to have a happy life, economics, human nature...

        I spend a lot of time studying the human brain, and the ways we use it.  I'm studying to be a psychological therapist, and study a lot of neuroscience.  So basically....

              This is your brain:

And this your brain on my blog:

       I plan disect the human brain and psyche for us all to have a poke around.  Keep your shirt on... I just mean I'll post a lot about what I have learned, where I think mainstream psychology gets a bit full of itself, (*coughFREUDcough*) and a few theories.  (Picture the universe as a giant brain...)  I also like to put them in perspective by seeing how modern psychological theory affects and even changes all of us, even when we don't notice it; in religion, work, the grocery store, you name it.  

I read stuff and I write stuff.

       I love fiction.  I think they often have amazing points, and can teach us about ourselves and the way we see the world.  I read all kinds of things, but my escape is fantasy and science fiction novels.   I write some of my own; mixing in neuroscience, quirkiness, a sprinkle of redhead, and stir to a simmer.

         I'll post some examples, as long as you promise to tell me exactly what you think.  And as long as you guys aren't totally against my retelling of Cinderella as a sci-fi covert agent, the 3 little pigs as a western, and Rapunzel as a psychiatric patient.  (Oh, and in case the picture isn't clear.... I'm holding a ring...)

I do the 'making of stuffs' thing

         I like to make stuff in real life.  My wife is a huge Dr. Who fan (even more so than me,)  so I made her these TARDIS earrings for her birthday.  Yes, it took a long time.  And yes, I am pretty much the best husband ever.

        I am working on turning an old piano into a computer desk.  Expect at least a few posts about crazy ideas that I am excited about!

I Actually Have a Job. 

(I Know, Who'd have thunk?)

        I'm a piano professional piano technician.  This means I tune them and I fix them, and I love them, and I am a horrendous piano snob.  (That's me with the guts of a grand piano, making it all better.)  Won't make me rich, but I love it, and will still probably keep it up on the side even after I get licensed as a psych therapist.  I won't write much about this directly, (I'll save that for www.pianotunerman.com,) but it taught me a lot about work, business, marketing, and people. 

I'm all Growed Up With Kids 'n Stuff

        Most important of all, I am a happily married husband of 6 years (as of last week,) and the proud father of two shoulder angels.  Well, one at least, depending on the day, and whether or not they have decided to give my laptop a "bath."  Yeah, don't ask.

        Still, laptop baths included, I'm glad I'm a daddy, and nauseatingly glad I married my wife.  I promise, this blog won't be just a brag-fest or a glorified love-letter, but I'll put in all the things that my psychology studies, my parents, my own thoughts, and experience has taught me about some really amazing secrets to dealing with the hard parts.  Like how I partly blame the way we teach about Charles Darwin for the rise of the divorce rate in the USA.

Stay tuned, stay sexy, and sign in tomorrow to figger out what the devil I mean by such ridiculous claim.

  

Quintessential Paradigm of Absurdity

Welcome to the Dork Side

Take your Cursor! Strike me down! And your journey to the--aww skip it.  Welcome to mah blog, snitches. 

<This is me.
         Well, the dude is.  I am not boths of us.  I am wanted in 5 countries, banned from 3 more, legendary in 42 states, was declared an illegal substance in Texas, and killed a bear by flexing my nostrils. My DNA is the international reference for the color red, I snore in sonnets mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare, and when Sotheby's had my used kleenex up for auction, the resulting riot lasted for two weeks.  
       I invented Mount Everest, Pokemon, and the color puce, am immune to embarrassment and most forms of pastry, explored the depths of the universe before lunch.  My fingers have built coliseums, pyramids, a toothpick model of Napoleon, and picked more than a few noses.  My snot is used as fuel for warp drives, and my spit can cure cancer and depression, and my tears have been declared weapons of mass destruction.  Superman decided to wear red only after he saw my hair, and stole my nick-name for his super-ego (a little Dr. Freud joke there... If you got that, then you are pretentious. If you didn't get it, there may be hope for you,) I can swallow an alligator and spit out a designer purse with a zipper made of diamonds.
        Just my name is so poetic and musical that it spent a month at the #1 spot in the billboard charts, and is a constant New York Times Bestseller.  I am Danny Potter.  Honest.

And yes, I know.  I use some... strong language.   

Not e'erbody can handle it.   So if you can't handle words like "Freakin,"  and "schpuntz," and "poopy," and "omiholyfreakinmotherofeddison," then you best be done, son.  'Cause I am not afraid to get real.

Also, I wrote this today (deep, I know.  I even surprised myself,):  

 "I don't mind talking to myself. Honestly, I don't even mind getting into arguments with myself. It's just that sometimes I get so bull-headed and a bit too heated, and then I say something really hurtful to me, and storm off in a huff. (I'm all like "Whhhhhuuuuut?" Ref picture at right,)  Then I go through the whole ordeal of trying to make it up to me. It's hard, because at first I'm refusing to talk to me, but what worthwhile relationship is doesn't take a little work?

 So I buy me flowers, and leave little surprise love notes for myself, and finally I win. Heck, I'm just so cute; I can't stay mad at me forever. The only real problem it presents is when I'm sitting in a crowded room, and I crack a joke to myself and break up laughing. Honestly, people look at me as if I were crazy."  

        And I don't get that.  

        I'm not crazy.  

I mean, I can neither confirm nor deny that somebody may have given me caffeine.......   

        ......But I'm pretty sure it didn't do anything anywa---look, something shiny!