Count your curses

Chris and I have a dear friend who is prone to severe depression.  More than anyone I know, I think she would rather "count her curses" rather than "count her blessings".  If she would only stop focusing on what is less than perfect about her mom, her step dad, her job, her friends, her apartment, etc., I think she could be a happy person.  She's beautiful, healthy, young, smart, and charming when she's not in a deep funk.  I've told her she has a smile like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman", that flashes when you least expect it and makes lights up a whole room.

But she latches on to anything that is less than perfect in her life and broods about it.  She counts her curses.  "This sucks about my job.  This also sucks.  This is a 3rd thing that sucks.  A 4th, 5th, 6th.  Here's the 10,000,000,000,000th thing or person I don't like about my job".  She just finished counting her curses.  Big surprise:  she starts to get depressed!

She's got a great job.  If she tried, she could list 10,000,000,000,001 great things about it.  She could count her blessings instead of her curses.  I'm sure she'd feel 100% better.  Similarly, she's been hyperfocused on the dark side of friends, family members, and other situations in her life.

I know she'd be happier if she spent time every day brainstorming all the good things in all the major aspects of her life.  Based on the research in The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, I'd advise her to also pick one day a week to REALLY crank up her contemplation of the good things in her life.

But she won't do it.  I know what would help an alcoholic become healthier.  Stop drinking.  But it isn't that easy for them.  The destructive habits they have serve another purpose for them that is hard to let go of.

So what is the "other purpose" of counting your curses?  What benefit does it give to people like my friend?  If you find fault with your job, your friends, your family, your genes, and everything else around you, then you can blame these outside factors for everything that isn't up to par in your life.  Gratitude, on the other hand, takes courage.  If you "count your blessings", you admit that you are blessed.  You admit that you have been given opportunities.  Then, if your life isn't the way you want it to be, you have to own this.

Gratitude implies responsibility.  I can't be grateful and point fingers at the same time.  If I count my blessings, I leave myself holding the bag, fully accountable for the situations in my life that I'm not satisfied with.

So my friend might have a simple shortcut to happiness:  she can count her blessings instead of her curses.  But she won't take the shortcut.  It might take years of therapy before she's willing to take this shortcut of cultivating gratitude and accepting the responsibility that goes with it.

Gratitude Every Second

Research described in The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want and other books shows that there are habits which increase your happiness, but give you the most benefit when done just once per week.  These habits include writing in a gratitude journal, doing acts of kindness, and picturing success in the future.  If you push yourself beyond your normal limits in these areas, once per week, you get big advantages that you don't get from daily routines that don't vary in intensity.

But much of what I believe in suggests that it isn't just once per week that matters.  Every second matters.  Moment to moment, we need to have the right thoughts, actions, and feelings.  This is the theme of Buddhism and of books such as The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment that form the core of my philosophy.  How do I reconcile this "be here now" philosophy with the data revealing the power of weekly rituals?

I think that there is no conflict.  Weekly rituals later on lead to better choices moment to moment.  Weekly bouts of gratitude, in which I think of many things that are wonderful in my life, cause me to be more grateful the rest of the week, moment to moment.

Perhaps my favorite part of Buddha's Eightfold Path is "Right Effort".  "Right Effort" involves, first, tuning in to one's body and mind.  Next, you pick the thoughts or actions that will improve your mind and body.  You strive to avoid or put an end to unwholesome states--guilt, anger, indigestion.  You seek to start or build on wholesome states--joy, compassion, gratitude.  If you master "Right Effort", you do this all the time, cultivating a heightened awareness and vigilance that would put a martial artist or a warrior to shame.

This is one place I can apply the techniques of "The How of Happiness".  When I ask myself, "What thoughts and actions can I apply now to improve my state of mind?", I can respond by counting my blessings, reaching out to another person, meditating, or envisioning future success.  As I've described in early blog postings, I will emphasize these things even more than usual once per week.  The research shows that this weekly emphasis increases the power of the techniques.  But moment to moment, I'll return to these techniques whenever I manage to remember to tune into my current state and look for a way to improve it.  

This is what this entire website is all about.  This is what I mean by "Embrace Your Changing Self".

Happiness and the In-box

As much I liked the book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, I think the author missed at least one key "how".  The "hows" described in the book tended to be behaviors that are easily tested, such as testing the effects of meditation or writing in a gratitude journal.  They involved a simple activity that you could ask a bunch of people to do and then compare them to a control group that doesn't do the activity.

One "how" that I feel the author missed is the "how" of a good time management system, such as the system described in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity that I've written about many times before.  I'm convinced that this system has made me much happier in the last few months by helping me process my "in-boxes" (paper, electronic, and even commitments made in a meeting or over the phone), so that the in-boxes become empty.  The actions implied by all that input, instead of hiding in a huge batch of e-mail messages, are now organized into plans that I address much more efficiently than I have in the past.  This leaves me feeling more in control.  I'm more confident that there isn't something important I should be doing but can't remember.  I think people who depend on me feel more confident that they CAN depend on me.  And I feel as if I'm better able to align my actions with the things I really value.  This type of time management system may not appear in the "How of Happiness" book, or similar books such as Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment because implementing a time management system is such a complex effort, that it isn't easy to test one group of people versus a control group that didn't implement the system.

The other "Hows" of Happiness

Of all the techniques for increasing happiness in the book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want, I'm putting most of my focus on the techniques involving regularly counting my blessings, imagining future success, practicing good deeds, and investing in relationships--especially beyond my immediate family.  Of all the "hows" that this book says are experimentally proven to boost happiness, these "hows" seem to have the most potential for me.

But before I move on to other books in this blog, I should list the other "secrets of happiness" described in this book.  For me, they either are something I already do reasonably often or things that will get "covered" by the practices that I have decided to focus on.  The techniques are:

• "Avoid Overthinking" (especially anxious, guilty, or regretful thoughts)
• "Develop Strategies for Coping"
• "Learning to Forgive"
• "Increasing Flow Experiences" (activities where you lose yourself in what you're doing)
• "Savoring Life's Joys"
• "Committing to Your Goals".
• "Practice Religion and Spirituality".
• "Meditate"
• "Physical Exercise"
• "Act Like a Happy Person"

Just my luck

Years ago, I tried to keep a gratitude journal but quickly gave up.  It was often hard to think of things to write.  In hindsight, I realize I was needlessly limiting my choices.  I took "gratitude" literally to mean I had to think of things that I would thank someone for.  Now that I realize I can be grateful for simple luck, the choices are endless.  There are so many great things in my life that didn't involve anyone going out of there way just for me.  I'm just in a fortunate situation.  When I think of these things, I become optimistic, I feel fortunate, I habitually notice nice things that I might otherwise have missed.

A few great things that happen to be in my life:

• Pandora radio.  Amazing to be able to create commercial free radio for any type of music I like.
• Noise canceling headphones.
• A nice neighborhood.
• One of my family members needs some alternative medicine.  It's good to live in a city large enough to find it.
• Living in a time when you can get so much information so easily.
• All the business, family, and self help books that I'm addicted to.
• A great public school for my kids.
• Working at a company that values integrity.
• Modern medicine and health.
• Fall colors

There will be times when my life situation gets worse--much worse--but a habit of brainstorming all the things that are RIGHT with the world will help me stay upbeat.

Thanks to Good Luck

The book The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want describes experiments showing that people will be happier if they think about the things in life they are grateful for.  But what if you are grateful for something and there is nobody to thank?  What if good things happened to you, but it was just luck?  Are you still being "grateful" when you celebrate good luck and there is nobody you can thank?

For me, it feels the same.  I get a positive feeling when I thank my wife for a wonderful dinner.  But I got a similar feeling when I was walking the dogs yesterday morning and I saw rays of sunlight cutting through fog to light up a red maple tree.  I was glad that I happened to be there to see that.  Noticing the good things around me, even if I just got lucky, even if there is nobody I can thank, still feels to me like an exercise in cultivating gratitude.

The Wisdom of the Sabbath

I'm a Buddhist, but reading The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want has given me a new appreciation for the wisdom of the Sabbath.  The Jewish and Christian faiths have sometimes been mocked for their emphasis on weekly religious services.  Critics say that too many people attend church on Sundays or synagogues on Saturdays, then return to very non-spiritual lives the rest of the week.  But I think these critics are underestimating the power of weekly ritual.

The most shocking thing, to me, about the research described in the "How of Happiness" is that many activities are more powerful when practiced once per week than they are when practiced daily.  It's as if the weekly rhythm makes the rituals more special.

According to the research, there are several activities that can make you measurably happier if you do them every week, but make NO difference if you do them every day without variation.  Contemplating or writing down the things you are grateful for.  Imagining the many ways you and your loved ones might succeed in the future.  Going out of your way to help others.  Naturally, it's good to be appreciative every day, to be optimistic every day, and to always be kind.  But it's a matter of degree.  Apparently, all of these things make you much happier if you take them to a higher level than normal once per week.

This research makes me respect the tradition of the Sabbath.  I don't think it is a coincidence that traditions developed in which one day per week was devoted to reflection, to appreciation of God and life, to prayers for the future.  I think people learned many years ago that the perfect rhythm for some rituals is a weekly beat.