I’ll be happy when…

Pop quiz.

Take 10 seconds right now and honestly complete the following sentence seeds out loud:

I’ll be happy when _________________.

If I had ____________ then I’d be happy.

Once I _____________, then I’ll be happy.

These sentences are in the form of equations, where the variable is whatever you are waiting on to feel happy or content with your experience of life.

I call them the Doom Equations.

And that is because they are illusory!

You probably know this as well as I do. 

Yes, the test is rigged!

And yet, if you answered honestly, you probably had zero problem filling them out, right?

This is a classic example of things we “know” but don’t actually embody.

In other words, we don’t know, we only say we do.

Like much of our wisdom curriculum, this one needs constant repetition and practice to counteract the human tendency to fall again and again into the trap of the infinitely-illusive-happiness equation. 

Lately, I’ve been listening again to a series in the Waking Up app on Stoicism by William B Irvine. I was already ruminating on this topic when I heard one of the talks called “Negative Visualization” speak to it directly… 

… and of course, when synchronicity taps me on the shoulder, I not only listen, but I like to relay what I hear to you, so we can be in the beauty of learning together.

Here’s an excerpt to wet your whistle… 

“What is it that you want in life? One common answer is that people want to be happy. This raises a follow up question. What’s your strategy for becoming happy? A common answer? You become happy by getting the things in life that you want. Although this recipe for attaining happiness is quite popular, it’s defective. And that’s because it ignores a psychological phenomenon known as “hedonic adaptation.” So here’s the situation: you want something. You work to get it. You finally do get it. For a while, you’re happy. But then, the problem is you get used to the thing you have and you’re no longer happy. You don’t live happily ever after the way you thought you would. You end up at pretty much the same position as you were at before you went to all that trouble. And you find yourself wanting new new things on the belief that if only you had them, you would live happily ever after. At this point a comment is in order. If you’re currently unhappy, it’s proof that you have never in your life succeeded in doing something that would let you live happily ever after. And yet the dream persists. It’s high time that you considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your strategy for pursuing happiness is flawed. It turns out that the get-happy-by-getting-what-you-want strategy provides you with a recipe— not for having a good life, but for having a life filled with dissatisfaction. By adopting this strategy, you unwittingly place yourself on a hedonic treadmill, on which happiness is like a mirage in the desert.”

Well, blarg.

Raise your hand if you’re on the ‘hedonic treadmill’!

✋

Irvine says this equation is “not only ineffective, but counterproductive”, and that the balm to this dissatisfaction is learning to want what you already have.

He attains this through his Stoic practices and contemplations, and I must say, each time I listen to his talks, I become pretty convinced that he is teaching a solid and sound approach to happiness and contentment.

What if when approached with the sentence seeds above, we could honestly respond with something like…

“I know I’ll be delighted with my future accomplishments and successes, and I truly feel content with Life as it is at this moment.”

This is a worthy undertaking, don’t you agree?

Because I love awakened action, here’s 3 little homework assignments for you, should you choose to accept them…

A) Hit reply and share one of your doom equations with me. 

Let’s get real and be in the realness of this conundrum together.

B) Listen to these 2 stoicism talks and see how they land.

Don’t take it from me, check it out and find out for yourself if William’s methods hold water.

Negative Visualization (11m 39s)

You Are Living the Dream Life (14m 28s)

C) Try this “Loving What you Have” EFT Tapping practice with Brad Yates (10m 32s)

To living your best life (and recognizing it as it's happening!),

Britta