Make it Happy

Upbeat Cubans having a jam.

A friend of mine recently traveled to Cuba with a few friends and business partners.  Once there, he made two observations that forced him to ask an interesting question.  The first observation was that the country had fallen to ruins under Communist rule.  Since the political climate of Cuba gave little opportunity or motivation for self improvement, each citizen simply settled for what they thought they could get.  Without the potential for a richer life, the quality of Cuban life and infrastructure slowly declined until everyone was living just slightly above poverty level.  But he also observed that Cubans seemed relatively happy.  This led him to a question – Do we really know what makes us happy?

Be that person.

In the book “Stumbling on Happiness”, Daniel Gilbert makes a strong argument that we really don’t have the ability to predict what will make us happy.  Most Americans tend to think the next “thing” should make us happy.  We tend to strive for a bigger house, a new car, a new pair of shoes, or a new item of clothing.  In the end, we find that all of these things don’t result in a whole lot of pleasure.  Even worse, we are also lousy at recognizing events that should make us happy.  We often wish for peace in times of drama, but we then perceive peaceful events as boring and create drama to combat boredom.

Often, we don’t allow ourselves to be happy because we want more of everything than we had yesterday.  Numerous studies show the upper class is only slightly happier (because they have less to worry about) but once they reach a certain threshold of financial security, strife and dissatisfaction still prevails.  The old adage holds true – money does not buy happiness – but the right amount of money may reduce stress.  The trouble is, we don’t recognize the right amount of money when we have it.

In the book “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying”, Bronnie Ware records her findings from several years of working in palliative care, talking to hundreds of people in the last weeks of their life.  She discovers the top 5 regrets of these dying folks as follows: 1. I wish I’d had the courage to live life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.  2.  I wish I didn’t work so hard. 3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. 4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.  I find item 5 most interesting – sometimes we simply need to give ourselves permission to BE happy.  So, instead of making choices for things that should MAKE us happy, perhaps we can just CHOOSE happiness.

Choose happiness.

In his popular TED talk, “Paradox of Choice”, psychologist Barry Schwartz concludes we have too many choices in American life, which results in expectations that a perfect choice exists, which nearly always results in disappointment.  He summarizes his philosophy by saying, “The secret to happiness is low expectations” which evidently holds true in the Cuban example.  To take this further, I would argue that some choices are not available to all of us, but we see that other people have more choices than we have and become unhappy with the comparison.  Still, unhappiness occurs because we think better choices probably exist to MAKE us happy.

Why am I writing this?  It’s not because I believe the Cuban example is the best way to run a country.  Instead, I’m arguing Americans should enjoy our good lives and give ourselves permission to BE happy.  Be yourself, and say what you think and feel.  Work hard enough to pay the bills, and then take the time to do something you enjoy.  Don’t bother comparing your material things to the things of others because those with more and better things are probably not much happier.  Love your family and friends.  Most of all, find reasons to be happy.  I hope you take it literally when I say, “Have a happy New Year”.

Tony F.  2017