The Book of (Holiday) Awesome Page 9
Harvard Business Review reports that happy people are 31% more productive, have 37% higher sales, and are three times more creative than their counterparts.
So what’s the first thing you must do before you can be happy?
Be happy.
Be happy first.
Being happy opens up your learning centers. Your brain will light up like Manhattan skyscrapers at dusk, sparkle like diamonds under jewelry store lights, glow like stars in the black sky above a farmer’s field.
American philosopher William James says, “The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.”
The Happiness Advantage author Shawn Achor says, “It’s not necessarily the reality that shapes us but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.”
William Shakespeare says, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
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The single biggest reason it’s so hard to be happy
Shakespeare says, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” But if it’s just thinking, plain thinking, why can’t we think ourselves into a good mood whenever we want? Seems like we should be able to just flip a mental switch.
But we all know it’s not that easy. Sometimes our brains get focused on negative things. We can’t stop! I do this all the time. And you want to know a secret? Everybody does. Every single person gets stuck focusing on the negative sometimes. I’ve spoken on stages with the best-known motivational speakers, Fortune 500 CEOs, and political leaders from around the world. Do you know what they’re all doing backstage? Freaking out. Sweating. Thinking something might go wrong.
We all have negative self-talk. There is no such thing as an eternal optimist. There are people who feel optimistic, but those people have negative self-talk, too. And that’s okay. The problem isn’t that we have negative thoughts in our brain.
The problem is we think we shouldn’t have negative thoughts.
But why do our brains focus on negative things? Once we understand this we can learn how much we can control and make conscious efforts to be happy using proven techniques.
This is one of the most important things I can share with you.
Why is it so hard to be happy?
Because life was mostly short, brutal, and highly competitive over the two hundred thousand years our species has existed on this planet. And our brains are trained for this short, brutal, and highly competitive world.
—
How short, brutal, and highly competitive was it?
Let’s do a quick experiment.
Stop, close your eyes, and picture the last time you felt completely alone in the middle of nowhere.
Was it camping in the mountains when you walked away from the fire and stood on the jagged edge of a mirrory lake? Was it a misty waterfall you found on a field trip when your classmates disappeared and all you could hear was the wind rustling the leaves in the forest canopy? Was it jogging at sunrise on a sandy beach when you curled around the coastline and suddenly couldn’t see anyone for miles in any direction?
Picture yourself back in that scene.
Now mentally erase from our planet all of the following:
Toilets
Sinks
Showers
Running water
Computers
Phones
Internet
Beds
Chairs
Roads
Bikes
Cars
Planes
Boats
Books
Paper
Pencils
Pens
Hospitals
Doctors
Medicines
Tools
Grocery stores
Fridges
Freezers
Farms
Stoves
Microwaves
Shirts
Sweaters
Jackets
Pants
Socks
Shoes
Underwear
You are now standing alone in the middle of the planet with none of those things. Take your phone out of your pocket and toss it away. Take your shoes and shirt off, too, because they don’t exist. Take everything off. You are completely naked with nothing around. None of those things exist. And none of them will begin to exist before the end of your life!
Now close your eyes, picture yourself there, and remember that:
99% of our history was living in this world.
99% of our history was with a life span of thirty years.
99% of our history was with brains constantly battling for survival.
Life was short, brutal, and highly competitive, and we have the same brains now that we’ve had throughout our history.
Were we happy back then? The better question is: Did we have time to be happy?
David Cain, author of This Will Never Happen Again, describes this exact situation on his website Raptitude: Getting Better at Being Human:
If one of our ancestors ever actually became happy with his possessions, with his social standing, or with what he had accomplished in life, he would suddenly be in a particular kind of danger. There was no cradle of civilization to depend on if something went wrong. So survival required us to make our own safety nets. Having enough could never feel like enough, or else we’d become complacent, leaving us vulnerable to predators, competitors, and bad luck. Lasting happiness was too risky.
This instinctive need for what we don’t yet have creates in us a persistent state of dissatisfaction. Without it, our ancestors would always be only one failed hunting session away from starvation. This simple, ruthless script is programmed to drive survival at all costs. It works exceedingly well for this purpose, but it leaves us feeling stress and unpleasantness much of the time. Unhappiness is nature’s way of keeping people on their toes. It’s a crude system, but it has worked for thousands of years.
We have the same brains we’ve always had through this short, brutal, and highly competitive time in our history. Our brains didn’t just suddenly change when we got printing presses, airplanes, and the Internet. How have our brains been programmed?
Year
→
“I need . . .”
→
“If I don’t, I’ll . . .”
180,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
170,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
160,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
150,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
140,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
130,000 BCE
→
Food
and safety
→
Die
120,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
110,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
100,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
90,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
80,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
70,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
60,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
50,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
40,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
30,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
20,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
10,000 BCE
→
Food and safety
→
Die
1
→
Food and safety
→
Die
1000
→
Food and safety
→
Die
2000
→
Happiness
→
Die
What did this fear do? It drove our survival. We survived at all costs. We were paranoid. We were fighters. We were ruthless. We were brutal. We were murderous. And because of it . . . we got here. And because of it . . . we took over the planet. And because of it . . . we have everything in the world.
So this begs the question: Is that fear still programmed into our heads today?
To learn more about and order THE HAPPINESS EQUATION visit penguin.com/happinessequation
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