If you're happy and you know it write a blog....

Okay, so we covered the background stuff, now let's get to the good stuff!

I left off with saying that when I was unhappy people still viewed me as happy. This actually sort of blew my mind when I first encountered it. Good old Facebook was the doorway to that revelation. As I reconnected with people who knew me in middle school and high school and we started chatting and sharing memories of each other one of the things that kept coming up was that I was "sweet" and "funny" and always laughing. That's not how I remember myself, but it makes sense. I have an easy smile and I laugh a lot. I can remember sitting with friends telling jokes and trying to crack each other up. So it makes sense that for them that's what they remember. The funny happy kid. Now, many of them will also tell you that I wasn't someone to be messed with. I had a bad temper that could flare but it was always at other people, not them. The me they interacted with was happy. Even if I was more reserved back then than I am now. For me the quiet part was the self protection, the angry part. They just saw it as I was a little quieter than I am now.

When I was miserable in Colorado Springs the woman who was my boss would tell you that I was one of the happiest people she knew. I did my job and figured out quickly that I had more hours in my work day than I did work to fill it so I kept taking on more and more to ease her burden. I picked up an entire department and ran it as well. I changed the way we in the office interacted with the boxers. Lightened up that relationship so they knew we were on their side. I understood a little something about kids who were guarded and cautious, you see, so I knew that for the most part if you didn't treat them like they were boxers, but like they were teenagers excited to be travelling to new places and meeting new people they would respond not like boxers but like kids. And if you ask C about his memories in Colorado Springs I would bet "my mother was miserable" wouldn't be on the list. He might tell you about school, camping with a friend, learning the trumpet or even dancing like a wild man to the Beastie Boys with his mother who was laughing like a loon.

How can this be? I was miserable. How come people thought I was so happy? That's because my baseline is happy. I've figured this out over the years as well. And I had it reinforced this week while attending my latest Institute for Brain Potential seminar. This one was on Developing Positive Emotional Habits or The Joyful Brain; the Neurobiology of Happiness. I've been interested in this area, Positive Psychology, since the mid-90s. It resonated with me. That we can make choices that will lead us to happier lives. We can change the world around us just by changing the way we view it. But how does this then translate to people thinking I was happy when I wasn't?

There was a study done in 2008 by Sonja Lyubomirsky that helped show what makes up happiness. This was an expansion of other research that had been done, as most is, but the final picture she came up with was that our happiness is determined 50% by your set point, 40% by intentional activities and 10% by circumstance. Set point is the genetic factor. By studying brain function in children as young as a few days old they can see activity in the area of the brain we associate with happiness. Happy babies have more activity in that area, fretful babies have less.  By studying these children through childhood they saw that this set point happiness was pretty consistent. They also looked at sets of identical twins who were separated at birth and discovered that even though they had been raised apart, their relative happiness was the same. We have a genetic happiness level that is set. Makes sense to me. My mother and father were both very happy people. Smiling, helpful, laughing. So it makes sense that I have that, just like I have my father's brown eyes and the same face shape as my mother. Why not their happiness set point as well?

So to me what this means is that it's easier for me to be happy than it is for someone whose set point is lower. But it doesn't mean that someone with a lower set point can't be happy. Because 40% is determined by your intentional activity. Your choices. When I was making the choice not to be happy, I wasn't. But since my natural set point is happy, my "normal" state is smiling, laughing and telling jokes. I have to make the choice to be miserable. And I have at times.

The other part that shocked me was the 10% is circumstances. Now if you were to have asked me at the time why I was unhappy I would have listed all of my circumstances. I was unhappy because of x, y and z. And to a point yes, that was true. When I was going through the worst of it with my sister it would have been impossible to be happy right at that moment. But years later? When the actual situation had passed? I was unhappy because I was choosing to be. Choosing to be guarded and angry about something I couldn't change. Once I stopped making that choice my overall happiness increased. Remember when we are talking about happiness here we aren't talking cartwheels and confetti, just general contentment and pleasure in life. Life happens and sometimes it's shitty. But you always have the choice to deal with it in a more positive manner. And that's where choosing happiness comes in to play for me.

Before I start this next section, which really is the meat of what I think Juice wanted me to talk about I want to make very clear that I do believe that there are people out there that are greatly benefited by pharmacological help. I have dear friends who have chemistry imbalances that are greatly helped by these drugs and I don't want anyone to think I am saying they shouldn't be taking them or that they are choosing depression. There is Depression and then there is depression. One needs the drugs, one needs an attitude adjustment. Only you and your doctor know which area you fall in to.

Okay, now on to the choices we all make.

I've talked before about how I don't do guilt and what this means to me. And I think it falls very nicely in choosing to be happy. Guilt is an actionable emotion. If you are feeling guilty you need to change your behavior. Regret is what you are left with when the choice has been made and you can't change it. I have regrets. I'm 44 so I have accumulated a lot of them in my life. But I don't dwell. Because dwelling is a waste of time. That's not to say I don't have a "Rainy Days and Mondays" playlist of sad songs for those days when you just feel down and want to wallow a bit. Everyone has those times. Sad movie days. Sad song days. But they should be brief stops on your emotional trail. I used to have a fortune cookie slip on my computer at work that said, "He who has not tasted the bitter does not understand the sweet" and I do believe that. If you don't know what bad is you cannot grasp what good is. A friend of mine says that the good thing about being sick is that you then understand how wonderful normal is.

But are you wallowing? Are you sitting around feeling guilty about something you are doing but not changing your behavior? Are you feeling miserable day in and day out but not doing anything about it? Are you choosing to be unhappy? Take a look right now through your Facebook feed and you can tell who is choosing to be unhappy. You already know right? You know the friends you have that can find the gray cloud in every silver lining. Or the ones that can look at a rainbow over a waterfall and react with...meh...  This is a choice. And we are faced with them every day. What is your choice?

We all know people who have less than us who are extremely happy and people who have more who are miserable. So we know it's not things that are making people happy. We've all met or know of people facing incredible health struggles that are lovely and happy people as well as people who stub their toe and it's FML. So it's not health that makes them happy. What is it? It's the choice to be happy. You all knew that was the answer but you are waiting for something else. Something more complicated than that. But it's not. It's just that simple. Sometimes life doesn't go the way you want it to and it makes you miserable. That's the 10%. It happens to all of us. But the really good news, the great news is that it's just 10% of the equation. We have 50% to fall back on that is just who we are (and if your 50% is pure misery there are choices out there you can make to compensate for that, you just have to work harder and probably get help from a professional who can guide you along) and then the really excellent part is we have 40% that is all on us.

Your choice. And just knowing you have the choice should make you happy. Now you are saying, you keep saying it's my choice but what does that mean? It means EVERYTHING!

It means looking at life differently sometimes. Like my time in Colorado. I looked at it all wrong. I focused on the negative things, I didn't ask for help when I needed it, I didn't make the right choices. But looking back I see all of the positives about our time there. Including the fact that I was miserable. Why is that a positive?  Because I don't let it get like that anymore. If I feel like Brent and I aren't connecting the way we should I tell him and we work on fixing it. If I feel like I have no control over something I ask myself the questions, why? how? What can I do to fix this? Life happens. But it doesn't just have to happen to you while you take it passively. You get to decide how you deal with it all. You get to make the choice. Is it easy? Not all the time. And especially if you have been making the FML choice for years. Breaking out of that cycle is going to take you time. But you can do it. And as you do it you will notice that the meh rainbow is all of a sudden the Oh my goodness did you see that rainbow?

And it means taking stock of your life. What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy? And it means changing the things that aren't working. Either through the way you look at them and experience them or by leaving situations that aren't good for you. And by knowing during those times when the 10% is hitting and you cannot change them that they are temporary. They will pass. Know that it might suck right this very second but it will pass. And sometimes this is hard. Extremely hard. Especially if you are the only one who isn't happy. It might be a job, or a school, or a relationship that is working for everyone else but you know it's not working for you. You have to decide why and then fix it. Going along with the flow isn't your only option. You have control.

So as I was thinking about these things and how I would write this blog I had a few moments of clarity for myself. One happened during the seminar. Dr. Brian was giving his lecture and he was talking about happy people and the fact that happy people do things that make them happy which makes them happier. It's this never ending cycle of happy times. When you are already happy seeking out things that make you  happy is natural to you. For instance, I chose this seminar knowing that I am already a happy person and I wanted to see if there would be any pointers there for maintaining my happiness. Was there anything new for me to learn? And there were some things, and a lot of other things I already knew, but hearing you are right makes you happy doesn't it? Or is that just me?

But then he talked about something that was very small but it struck a chord. One thing you see happy people doing that you don't see with unhappy people is scrapbooking. Happy people like to take pictures of things and then share them with other people. Look! See this thing that made me happy! It should make you happy too! And I thought...it's true. As you all know I've done the picture a day challenge three different times. And I stopped this year thinking that I was tapped out. But as January and February went by I realized I missed it. I missed not only taking the picture but also sharing it with you all. The interaction from the picture of the day. It was a way for me to share my life with friends who weren't here. And it made me happy. So I started it again. And as I decided to start it again and shared with people I would be starting I heard from friends who were excited by the news. They had missed the interaction as well.  My small happy token was theirs as well.

The other thing that the picture of the day does for me is makes me slow down and really think about life. Today my prompt is "something I made" hmmm...what should I do for that? It makes me think about my day and what my options are. It's a small moment of meditation on my life. And only by paying attention to life can we make the choices we should be making. It's a small thing that picture, but it's become bigger than just a quick toss off shot and post. Because of the way I chose to look at it. You see what I'm getting at here?

And here was my other big revelation that will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who knows me. I've  been in an almost constant state of trying to "find what will make me happy" for my adult life. I've tried a variety of careers and hobbies. I go from thing to thing looking for that elusive moment where I will think THIS IS IT! At the start of this year I decided that I would cut down on some things to try and make other things happen. All the while Brent was telling me,"but the things you are cutting out make you happy" (like picture of the day and chatting with friends on Facebook), while I was saying but what if these other things make me happier and I am missing them? And he just smiled and patted my knee and said "what ever makes you happy, dear." And here it is...this was my big revelation....Looking for new things to do that might be fun makes me happy. I have spent a lot of time looking for a destination not fully realizing that I am all about the journey. I know right? Not a single one of you is shocked by that. It's completely me. It's my personality in a nutshell. I've even said it before, I'm all about the journey. But for some reason until this week I didn't fully grasp it. I didn't fully get what it meant. There is no end game for me to happiness, it's all about everything all the time.

That's my choice. I don't think I will be happier 10 pounds thinner. I don't think I will be happier with more money in the bank. I don't think there is one job out there that is going to fulfill me completely. But there is a new book to read. A new story to share. A picture to take. A crow outside my window who is black and sleek and magnificent. A husband who brought me coffee and a piece of chocolate bread. A son who is on his way home for Spring Break. Friends who are reading this and hopefully realizing that happiness is in their grasp, they can decide today to start looking for the things in their lives that bring them joy.

There will also be challenges to face. And days where I will make the wrong decision about being happy. Days where I will be struck with grief. Days where it seems dark and miserable and like the world is conspiring against me. But I also know that when those things happen I get to make a different choice. I get to say, I will be happy. I will fix this and set my course back to sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. And then I will take a picture and share it on facebook so you all can be happy with me.

So what is your choice today? Happy or unhappy? Because it's on you now. What has happened in the past is done. You can't change it. And using it for an excuse for your today is weak. What is going to happen tomorrow is out of your control. It will happen or it won't. You only have so much you can do to guide your future. Using fear of what might come is weak. You only have today. Your choices today. Right now. That's where strength and happiness live. In the now. What can you do right now to be happy?

For me it was finally writing the blog that Juice asked for. Because I love her and she inspires me on so many levels to be better, happier, healthier so I give her this. Because I know she wants you to have it.

Choose happiness.