Be Happy!

One of my clients was really struggling. Joan liked her life. As a matter of fact, she LOVED her life. Her son was thriving. She felt great. Her business was adequately providing. But Joan felt terrible.

Why would she be struggling? Because she felt guilty that she wanted so little, was told she lacked ambition, felt lazy in comparison to her friends. She thought something was wrong with her because she wanted to spend quality time with her son, work out every day, take time to cook and focus on her spiritual life. Her friends thought she should be much busier, more fulfilled and much more ambitious.

Really, what determines what our day looks like? Who should decide what we should be doing or not? Perhaps you, like many, are feeling the pressure to keep up with Joneses and are on a merry-go-round that you’d like to stop.

Here are a few simple but profound things that I shared with my client. Ask yourself: Am I happy? If not, why not? Is there any area of your life where you would like to be happier?

Here’s the trap my client fell into and it’s easy for you to do the same. I want you to dismiss, throw out, ignore EVERYTHING that you have been told you should want – to make you happy. Get rid of EVERY opinion, judgment, belief and program that has been given to you about what defines happy. Oh, I know, that may be tough.

Joan responded, “But I feel like I should own a house.” Really? Is that what you feel you want or is that a program of society? For many today, owning a house is not affordable or even in the realm of possibility. Does that mean that you can’t be happy? Of course not! However, Joan thought that she should have a house because nobody in her family had ever owned a house. She felt that she should be the one to break the mold. Think about that. Is that a good reason to have a house? Absolutely not! No wonder she was feeling so weighed down and overwhelmed with it all.

After much conversation about a perfect day in Joan’s life – a day spent teaching a fitness class, time playing with her son in the snow, working out, having some social time with friends, and cooking, she thought that was too simple. I’m sorry, but I think that sounds like a pretty amazing day in my books. Hers too – she just was feeling guilty that it was so simple to feel happy. So back to the question: Where do you want to be happier?

You see, it is an important spiritual principle to be happy. Joy, a deeper level of happiness, is actually a fruit of God’s Spirit. The beatitudes in the Bible in some translations all start with, “Happy are those who….” And it goes on to list how to be happy. I’d say that would indicate an importance God gives to our happiness, wouldn’t you?

Interestingly, it doesn’t say, happy are those who own the latest car, have a million dollars in the bank, have the biggest house or went on the best vacation this year. As a matter of fact, I guarantee you that the happiest people didn’t necessarily buy a new car this year; didn’t necessarily have a vacation and may live in a humble home. They may not even have a lot of money in the bank.

Unfortunately, society dictates that we need a big house, a new car, and a host of other material things to be happy. No. But it’s easy to feel guilty about what we SHOULD want in life. I encouraged Joan to do this exercise and I highly recommend it to you too.

Make a list of what makes you happy. If you write down, having a million dollars for example, ask yourself: Is that because I really want a million dollars or do I just want my income to exceed my expenses? You may have bought into the idea that you need a million dollars to be happy but I doubt it. I have worked with millionaires as clients and they are as worried about their second, third, fourth or hundredeth million as you may be about your first.

Once you write down what makes you happy, then go through the list with a fine tooth comb. Meditate on every single item and decide whether it is something that really makes you happy at a soul level or if it is something that you think you should want to make you happy. Is this really YOUR happiness list or are there things on that list that you feel should be there, to appease or please someone else. There is a big difference.

Sometimes just taking some time off to relax, be with your family, cook a nice meal or go for a walk is the best time and makes you happy. People today are way too busy. Rather than push yourself to do more, perhaps you need to allow yourself to do less. Now isn’t that a twist!

Being busy all the time, racing here and racing there, having a daytimer that is chock full with appointments, commitments, obligations and “to do” lists may make you feel popular, ambitious and normal. It’s not necessarily what makes you happy.

As a matter of fact, quite interestingly, in the Business Needs Analysis that I send out to all of my business coaching clients, I ask them to define a perfect day if they could do anything they want for 24 hours. Would it shock you to know that not one of them has ever written: I would work?

It isn’t that work doesn’t make us happy. It is the excessive amount of work, useless work, mindless work, passionless work and obligatory work that drains us and robs us of our happiness. It is the constant working, the feeling that you should always be doing something.

Yet going back to a scriptural principle – the Bible taught a Sabbath or day of rest where work was actually prohibited. Another question I ask my prospective client on that Business Needs Analysis is: When was the last time you spent 24 hours without answering the phone or answering emails? Many cannot remember. Perhaps you are in need of a Sabbath?

We are work crazy. Everybody has their cell phones on, their Blackberries with them, you can now watch TV, movies, search the internet and even read a book standing in line. What ever happened to doing nothing? Has simply sitting and “being” gone the way of the dinosaur?

God commanded a Sabbath for a good reason. If you believe in the Genesis account of creation, God even took a rest after spending six days creating everything. If you look at everything in nature, there is a period of rest. Maybe we need to take a lesson from the bear that hibernates and from the trees that lose their leaves and rejuvenate to be able to reproduce again in the spring. It is a natural cycle that we often ignore. And then we aren’t happy. Take a Sabbath.

Or perhaps we really are happy with our life but it doesn’t fit the mold of what “life in the tribe” should look like. That can make us feel guilty and wrong, just like my client Joan.

Jesus said, “we must be in the world but not of the world”. What did he mean? He meant that we are here as spirit having a human experience and are very human, fleshly and in this physical world. However, that does not mean that we need to be of the world or think like the world.

The world is not necessarily healthy, have you noticed? Perhaps sickness is at an all-time high, divorce rates are skyrocketing and suicide stats are going off the charts because we are not going back to the basics. Simple, fundamental needs like love, play, fun and joy are critically important to our Spirit.

I don’t know what makes you happy. Only you do and even you may struggle with this exercise, because of such strong programming about what you should want.

As I concluded in my appointment with Joan, “So you don’t own a house. So you don’t drive a new car every year. So you don’t have a million dollars in the bank. So you’re just like more than 90% of the world’s population. What’s wrong with that? However, you have what very few people of the world have – happiness. So stop feeling guilty about it and just Be Happy!”

Blessings,

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