Happiness Cliff Notes

It’s my duty to be happy. I can’t be the first one to think that. This is why I spend so much time gazing at my navel, contemplating how to make it so. There’s a lot of research out there, but here’s my takeaway so far:

Thriftygal’s Cliff Notes on Happiness

I. Necessary, but not sufficient:

• A happy place to lay your head at night
• Easy access to good, healthy food
• Any of II, III, or IV below alone

II. Pleasant interactions

• Supportive family
• Close friends
• Inner ally

III. Feeling of control

IV. Sense of purpose

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I. Necessary, but not sufficient

• A happy place to lay your head and access to good food

I was born in a lucky spot in the universe and I have never had to think about these two items. You probably are too. When you stop to smell the roses for a second, you begin to realize how auspicious you are. You have the Internet. You’re reading this. You don’t just subsist. That’s more than a shocking percentage of the world can say.

If you’re hungry, it’s pretty hard to focus on anything else. Chronic hunger means your whole life is in crisis mode. I can’t even imagine. This is just the cliff notes. I want to write more about poverty soon.

Once you have the basic necessities, you can only dwell on the gratitude for so long before you begin to wonder what else is on. That’s where point three comes in.

• Any of II, III, or IV below alone.

It’s all about balance. I think.

II. Pleasant interactions

If your day-to-day interactions with other people aren’t stressful, but rather fun and comforting, your life will be better. Good relationships are important. I suppose you could add co-workers to the list below, but since I don’t have a job, I won’t.

• Supportive family

Happily for me, that lucky spot in the universe included the best family in existence. Awesome Mom, Dad, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles galore. I know everyone can’t say that. I read about an entire generation in China who have no brothers and no sisters; whose children will have no cousins, no aunts, and no uncles. What a lonely thought.

• Close friends

If you don’t have a great family, that’s not your fault. You can however, surround yourself with good friends. Hanging out and doing things that are fun and that interest you with other people who are fun and interesting makes you fun and interesting. Honest!

Knowing how to make friends has done heaps for my happiness level. Heaps. I don’t know how to quantify it. I’ve written a bit about it though.

• Inner ally

I’m human though and there are several aspects of happiness that I struggle with. The one person I hang out with the most is definitely the most annoying. Interactions with myself often suck. “Be nice to yourself” is one of the life tips that seem so obvious to me when I write it on my to-do list, but I am shockingly bad at doing on a day-to-day basis. Perfect strangers who read my neurotic blog (you) have pointed out that I’m hard on myself. I’m constantly complaining about myself to myself and then complaining to myself that all I ever do is complain. I’m lazy. I’m antsy. I don’t have common sense. I waste too much time. I’m not enough. That’s really not constructive at all, brain.

Sigh. Yeah, I just said “sigh” and didn’t actually sigh. Self compassion is such a valuable trait and one I wish I could master. Sadly, there are enough people out there who are eager to tear you down and tell you how awful, uninformative and worthless you are. Why join the chorus? Why not be a voice of calm and tenderness in the deluge? Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults.

If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Research shows that when the voice inside your head is a friend and not a bully, you’re more likely to:

1. try new things because failure doesn’t automatically come with scoldings;
2. have more self-confidence;
3. empathize with other people because you understand that everyone fails, everyone struggles; that is what it means to be human;
4. be healthier with better immune function;
5. take care of yourself because you don’t want yourself to suffer;
6. accept blame for your mistakes because, again, failure doesn’t automatically come with scoldings;
7. be better than me.

I see literally zero downside to being nice to yourself. All anybody wants is acceptance and love. I know it starts with yourself. I am not a bad person. I am a good person who has done some bad things. And the bad things I beat myself up over probably aren’t that bad. For instance, the guy I shot in Reno just to watch die was also really rude to his waitress.

I have a rule that I’ve been trying to implement for years and the article I linked above reminded me of – don’t say anything to myself that I wouldn’t say to a friend of mine. Whenever I do say something mean to myself, I have to stop and say something nice to counteract the negativity.

Like most things in life, I’m really terrible at it.

But it’s one of those resolutions that I keep putting on my resolutions chart because I know life would be so much better if I were better at it. I don’t have any words of wisdom on this bullet point. Sorry. I’m still trying. Go read an article I wrote about making friends.

III. Feeling of control

Having enough money lets me control my schedule. I cannot emphasize how big of a deal this is for my happiness level. I just wrote a bunch about this recently and a little less recently.

Life gets unbearable when your expectations of what you can have falls so far outside of what you actually have. Money = options.

IV. Sense of purpose

I’m still struggling with this piece too. Focus is my biggest problem. I’m still not sure what I *should* be doing. Whatever that means. I’ve been told more than once that I can’t waste my life having fun. Or at least, I can’t ONLY have fun. No, those both sound wrong.

I think it has to do with something outside yourself. For some people, it’s religion. For some people, I imagine it’s raising their children. Maybe it’s their business or their jobs? I hope to stumble across this at some point, but I want to say it’s some version of the campfire rule. Leave the place better than how you found it.

Here’s a quote by Howard Thurman that I think about a lot.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

I haven’t quite figured the alive part out, but I have a running list of things that make me feel dead. I’ll keep you updated as the experiment continues. Even if you don’t want me to.

What have I missed?