By Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.
SAN DIEGO –Happiness, for many, is a serious life goal. We “only want our children to be happy.” People spend their entire lives “searching for happiness.” We hear people declare, “You bring me so much happiness.” Or worse, we hear people pronounce, “I’ll never be happy.”
What’s all this business about happiness? It happiness all that it’s cracked up to be? Is there a formula to become happy?
First, we must understand that happiness is an inside job. That is, it is a conscious choice, not an automatic response. Happiness depends on the quality of your thinking, the thoughts you hold about your life’s experiences. It ultimately depends on our ability and decision to focus on the good.
Ingrid Bergman once alleged, “Happiness lies in good health and a bad memory.” That is, happiness does not develop because of what, or what does not, happen to us. It is created by our attitudes toward each happening.
“I should become unhappy and miserable because of what my stinking husband did? Never!” said a woman I was recently coaching. She’s right. Why in the world should she decide to become unhappy because her husband came home drunk yet another night? After all, he was the one who came home drunk, not her. She chose to remain happy despite what someone else did that she did not like. Why let anyone—anyone—steal your happiness, turn your sweet into sour?
“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it,” observed one philosopher.
Count Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Bluebird illustrates this point. A woodcutter’s boy and girl, Tyltyl and Mytyl, keep a blackbird in a cage in their home. What they want, however, is the bluebird of happiness. The two siblings set out from their modest hut in search of the desired bluebird. The twosome wander through many lands but return home disappointed and discouraged. Then, to their dismay, the blackbird they had lent to an ill child next door had turned into a bluebird. The fabulous bluebird of happiness was theirs all the time.
Happiness is not a possession we search for. Rather, it is a blessing present in everything we experience. The moral is to quit searching for happiness but start realizing and enjoying happiness where you are.
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin, in his wonderful book entitled, Happiness, offers three basic principles to create happiness:
- Appreciate and enjoy
- Find the positive
- Talk and act joyously
Unless you follow these three principles fully, and implement them completely in your life, nothing else you do will bring you genuine happiness. It’s really that simple. So you want to be happy, but are you committed to doing what it takes to become happy?
You know people who have said something like, “If you don’t accept my invitation to dinner, I’ll be very hurt.” Or, “If you don’t eat what I’ve cooked, I’ll be very insulted.” Or, “If you forget to pick me up, I’ll be very angry.”
How you take these events is up to you. If you consider happiness to be genuinely important, then you will choose not to take the things others say and do as personal attacks.
You will, instead, realize that what others do is their decision based on what they think is best for them, not for you.
So, armed with the belief that your worth is a given, that your value is a constant because of being created in the image of Hashem, you will recognize that you are now free from being lessened in any way by what others do or say.
Rabbi Pliskin suggests that, “when you appreciate the positive things that people say to you and do for you and view the negative as either their limitation or their subjective taste, or as a helpful message for you to improve,” you will be on the road to creating happiness in your life.
You will also need to recognize that it is important to forgive others even if they do not ask you for forgiveness. If you value your happiness, you’ll do this regularly.
Is happiness something you deserve? According to our Jewish tradition, simcha, or joy, a form of happiness, is an obligation. I also think that as long as you are a human, born to a mother, you deserve to live a happy life.
Benjamin Franklin was concluding a moving speech on the guarantees of the Constitution when a heckler shouted, “Those words don’t mean anything. Where’s all the happiness you said it guarantees us?”
Franklin smiled and calmly silenced his critic. “My friend, the Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness; you have to catch it yourself.”
I could not properly write a column on happiness without offering you the finest happiness formula ever developed. Like all other such advice, it isn’t easy and certainly not popular. Trust in Hashem. It will give you peace of mind. When you worry about the future, tell yourself, “Trust in Hashem.” When others leave you feeling fearful, tell yourself, “Trust in Hashem.” When you are upset over the way a business deal went, tell yourself, “Trust in Hashem.” When you consistently have this awareness in mind, and that Hashem will never let you down, you will consistently have a happy life.
Rabbi Levenstein of Jerusalem once wrote on the topic of this trust, “I am at peace, relaxed and unafraid like a child nursing from its mother.” Thus said David, King of Israel, surrounded on all sides by enemies, plagued by the most devastating tragedies within his own family, a man burdened by sorrows beyond bearing.”
“He was at peace, relaxed and unafraid. He knew the secret of trust in Hashem. He knew that nothing, nothing at all, can or will happen that is not willed by Hashem. No place for questions, none for complaints. All, all is willed by Hashem, only by Hashem. There is none other. We are in His hands, in His hands alone. No questions, no complaints, no worries.”
Happiness. It’s yours for the choosing. Choose it.
Mantell is author of the recently published 25th Anniversary Edition of his 1988 original, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff — PS It’s All Small Stuff. To purchase a copy, connect to Amazon by clicking on the picture of his book on the right hand panel. Comments on the above column may be placed in the box provided below or you may contact the author directly via michael.mantell@sdjewishworld.com