Mindful Moments: The Happiness Dilemma

The problem is keeping hold of it

Photo by D Jonez on Unsplash

See that arrow in the picture above?

Don't believe it. Happiness isn't that way. It's not in the future.

I was walking my dog in the snow this morning - the first snow of the year here (and most likely it’ll be gone by Tuesday). I was walking and thinking, just random thoughts. Shower thoughts, but on the move.

You know shower thoughts? That’s when you (or at least I) usually have my most creative thoughts, my a-ha! moments. So I was walking behind my dog Annie in her cute purple parka

and this thought popped into my head:

Happiness comes from awareness

Um, excuse me brain? What? Where did that come from?!

But as I continued to walk I thought: wait a minute…that is true! Happiness does come from awareness!

Awareness is a common theme throughout my (21) podcast episodes so far. It comes up a lot.I think I mention it in almost every episode - no matter what the topic is about, it somehow circles back to awareness being key.

And I, like probably most people, most of the time are not aware. We aren’t in the present moment.

And I think that’s where we can most often find happiness (and other positive emotions) when we are actually, truly, in the present moment. Like I was walking with Annie in the snow this morning.

I was just outside, enjoying the snow, enjoying seeing Annie with some pep in her step (she usually just plods along like the ancient 4-ish year old rescue dog she is! Yes, I said 4).

Most of us (well, I can only speak for me) live either in the future (raises hand - this is where I mostly live), or dwell in the past (yep, me too, sometimes - ruminating on things I said and did and wish I didn’t say or do).

Because I am an impatient person. It’s one of my weaknesses. Or dare I say flaws?

And I know I’m not alone in being impatient. And I’m fairly certain this attribute, this character trait, is probably on the rise in today’s fast-paced everything in an instant society - everything at the simple click of a button or available to arrive at your front door within 24 hours, or you can move onto the next episode of whatever series your streaming without having to wait a whole week like you used to have to do. We’ve become impatient as a society in general because we have everything at our fingertips, no need to wait.

Though I guess I don’t have that excuse really, since I’ve always been impatient. Again, living more in the future than the now. Wanting it to get to next week or next Friday or next weekend or whatever.

As a long time proponent of mindfulness and meditation I know the importance of being in the present moment. That’s what meditation and mindfulness are all about - being in the present without judgement, paying attention on purpose in a specific way to paraphrase the father of modern mindfulness Jon Kabat-Zinn.

I know that being in the present - just taking a moment to be truly in the here and now, to connect with the body, or the breath, or your environment and really, really notice it is a special, albeit most of the time fleeting experience.

I think that must be why I enjoy yoga so much and why I've had a daily practice since January 1st 2016.

Just the practice of moving your body and focusing on your breath and the various poses keeps me in the present moment and gives my mind a break from being in the past or future because I'm too busy yoga-ing. I think that's why I started to lean on my Yoga practice back then, and had my resolution to start a daily yoga practice - as a way to help me cope and literally move through the grief of losing my mom 2 weeks prior on December 14th.

Another way of being in the present, is if you’re experiencing flow. Flow is a term coined by Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (I highly recommend his book by the same title) which is when you’re so absorbed in something of interest that you lose all sense of time, and maybe even of being - because you’re so in the flow of whatever you’re doing. You might forget to eat or take breaks, and everything outside of whatever you are doing ceases to exist. This might be a hobby (like writing!) or a passion or activity or …whatever. It might be basketball. It might be painting. You might think you’ve just been doing…whatever it is, just for a short time, when in reality half the day has passed and you wonder why it’s suddenly nighttime!

Flow plays a part in happiness, because again, it’s all about your awareness. Your awareness, your attention is so focused on something, and not on the past or the future but on what you are doing right this moment.

We might think that winning the lottery or going on a cruise around the world or some other life changing thing will bring us happiness. And maybe it will, for a short time.

But thanks to something called hedonic adaptation, our feelings of happiness will eventually fall back to our baseline levels of happiness. Even if we’ve now got the sports car of our dreams or won the Nobel Prize or reached our dream goal of becoming a famous author. Because we get used to that new …whatever it is.

That new car, that new windfall of money, the new idea of being a famous author…after a while it becomes our new normal, and therefore the initial excitement and positivity and happens wears off.

That’s why practicing being more aware more often can help increase our instances of happiness more than just big ‘one-off’ moments that we think of as ‘real’ happiness.

So that’s what I’m going to try and do to cultivate happiness as much as possible. Try to become aware as much as possible. It’s a lot easier said that done, though. A lot.

Like, almost impossible a lot of the time, I’d wager.

But I’m going to try my best to bring my attention, my awareness, back to the present moment as often as possible (and also, that will hopefully cut back on a lot of anxiety I feel living in the future).

After all, it’s what I’ve chosen as my word of the year, as I wrote about in this piece on Medium at the start of the year:

https://medium.com/the-shortform/whats-your-word-for-the-year-e9decf50ee40

What about you? Do you agree with my ramblings on being present, being aware of what you’re doing, saying, experiencing right this moment being a source of happiness more than other things?

And don’t forget to live with a dose of wonder!

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