Decide to Be Happier NOW, Not Someday.

During my study of happiness, I’ve noticed that I often learn more from one person’s highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies. There’s something peculiarly compelling and instructive about hearing other people’s happiness stories.

Alex Fayle has a great blog, Someday Syndrome. There, he writes about the importance of not waiting until “someday” to pursue your dreams or make important changes, but to put these ideas into action now.

He just released an e-book, Someday My Ship Will Come In, to help people make the transition from autopilot to conscious choices. It leads readers through a series of short lessons and exercises designed step by step to get people thinking and choosing.

Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Alex: Each day I choose to be happy. When I wake up in the morning, I think about my day and I smile in anticipation. When I don't make this conscious choice, my day usually passes with low energy.

What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
When I was 18, I decided that it was too scary to follow my dreams, so I made a conscious choice not to pursue writing. I let fear put my dreams on hold for nearly twenty years and I spent that entire time not feeling happy. Until I made the choice to follow my writing dreams, I never realized that I had the power to make myself happy. I always waited for it to come to me, saying "Someday my ship will come in."

Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
When I see all the work ahead of me and the all the details each task entails, I get paralyzed and depressed. However, when I focus on just the next step facing me, I'm intensely happy. I find the more I look to the future - the more I look for that Someday Ship - the less I act in the moment. Each day therefore I ask myself - what can I do right now to bring my dreams closer to fruition.

Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve find very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself to “Be Gretchen.”) Or a happiness quotation that has struck you as particularly insightful?
I love this quote: “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.“ – Eleanor Roosevelt

It leads me to my motto, which is: Life is a choice.

Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
Happiness is difficult to find when we live on autopilot and live without making conscious choices. The more aware we are our of choices and the more we decide to be happy, the happier we are. We tell ourselves "Someday my ship will come in" and so put off making choices, believing that somehow happiness will come to us without having to act.

I wrote my ebook, Someday My Ship Will Come In, to help get readers thinking and choosing about their choices.

* I had a great time meeting Aidan Donnelley Rowley for coffee the other day -- we were set up by Danielle LaPorte of White Hot Truth fame -- and we could've talked all afternoon. She was nice enough to mention me and the happiness project in a post If You're Happy and You Know It... on her excellent new blog, Ivy League Insecurities.

*
Interested in starting your own happiness project? If you’d like to take a look at my personal Resolutions Chart, for inspiration, just email me at grubin, then the “at” sign, then gretchenrubin dot com. (Sorry about writing it in that roundabout way; I’m trying to thwart spammers.) Just write “Resolutions Chart” in the subject line.

Comments

[Positively Present]

Wonderful interview, as always. I read Alex's site all the time and it's great! We should definitely choose happiness now -- just like I wrote about in my post the other day: http://positivelypresent.typepad.com/positively_present/2009/05/asdasd.html

[Kristin]

I really need to learn to live by this sort of philosophy. He's so right; life is a choice. Even running on autopilot is a choice. It's scary to step away from that safety. If you make a choice, you're accountable for the consequences, and that's a big responsibility! But of course we're responsible for what happens in our own lives. The key is to accept and embrace that rather than say, "it's not my fault."

Thanks for the interview; it's definitely thought-provoking. I swear, I need to wallpaper my apartment (and my work cubicle!) with things like this. Force myself to think about it regularly and maybe it'll sink in!

[Alex Fayle]

@Positively Present
Thanks for the support everywhere!

@Kristin
Ooh, that's a good idea - Someday wallpaper! I should get someone to design that. ;)

[Era]

Interestingly enough, so many of us don't pursue our dreams. Perhaps hindered by fear and doubt - fear that maybe our dreams won't succeed, or if they do - then what?

Sometimes we're just comfortable with the status quo even though it's neither ideal nor optimal. Why don't we just go after what we like? We often know what will add to our happiness but we just don't go for it. I guess I'm a procrastinator at hear! http://erasundar.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/procrastinators-club-meeting-postponed-indefinitely/

[Lexi]

Do you have any tips for being happy and looking on the bright side when a lot of bad stuff is happening at once, including sickness?

[Alex Lickerman @ Happiness in this World]

While it sounds great to say that happiness is a choice, often we're not able to make it. There are many circumstances in which a conscious decision to be happy isn't possible. Some kind of practice or method to strengthen our inner life state seems necessary in order to prepare us for weathering difficult or tragic circumstances that make it almost impossible to choose to be happy. And yet I do think it's possible to achieve such a strong life-condition that nothing can shake it.

[Christopher]

"life is a choice." I can think about that all day...

[HappinessnLove]

I stumbled onto your site yesterday and am amazed to find such a lot of people with the same goal in life as me......simply being happy.I agree with Alex Lickerman when he says we can't be happy all the time.Atleaset I havent reached that stage yet.I believe that somtimes we need to choose the least painful option,because no "Happy" options are in sight.A Post on my blog elaborates on this.Do give it a look and tell me what you think:

http://joylovenhappiness.blogspot.com/2009/03/adversity-and-happiness.html

Have a Great day!!!!!

[Alex Fayle]

@Era
Great post you have there - all five points really resonated with me.

@Lexi
There's no way around it - illness sucks and it's hard to keep motivated or happy when facing it. I spent 9 years in chronic pain and sometimes found the best thing was to stop trying to be happy and just allow myself a really good wallow. Here's a way to do it without getting dragged down too far: http://somedaysyndrome.com/2009/03/making-suckiness-good-lab-rats-week-1/

I also had an interview with someone recently who lives with chronic pain and this is her take on life: http://somedaysyndrome.com/2009/05/living-with-someday-in-constant-pain/

@Alex
I agree - our conditioning sometimes precludes the ability to even see choices and that conditioning makes the choices for us without us even realizing it. In those cases, there's a lot of work to be done, best done with some sort of professional - therapist/spiritual leader/whoever.

@Christopher
After you think about it, what will you do? Action is key. ;)

@HappinessnLove
Glad you like the site - I don't believe you can be happy all the time. That's far too Stepford Wives for me. But nowadays even when I'm at my lowest I know that it's just temporary and that overall I would describe my life as happy. You raise some good points in your post, btw.

[Diane]

The quote by Eleanor Roosevelt is one I relate so strongly to I had a calligrapher do it for me & have it framed on my wall. Following her idea really helped me go through huge changes in my life. Every action of every day is a choice as is your reaction to an event you haven't a choice over.

[Neal]

What's especially helpful about this is that it reminds me that my happiness is up to me...not my circumstances.

One action that helps me when I am stuck is that I "act as if" I'm not a procrastinator. I "act as if" I want to exercise...and do it.

This has really helped me get off my tusch and get into action. That usually ends up with me being happier.

[HappinessnLove]

@Lexi
My mum suffered from a really bad period of illness .Nothing seem to work and the doctors couldnt figure out what was wrong.My mom and I then deviced a ritual for her,resembling a healing practice called Reiki.It really helped.You can read the details at :

http://joylovenhappiness.blogspot.com/2009/02/positive-energy-and-healing-physical.html

This other post may be relevant too:

http://joylovenhappiness.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-life-jolts-you.html

Hope it helps a little.

[Srinivas Rao]

Thanks for sharing. I've just added Alex's blog to my RSS feed.

[Alex Fayle]

@Diane
What a great idea! My sister stenciled a quote she loved around the top of a room once.

@Neal
Acting as if is a great way to get started. When I used to get stressed about my writing, I'd act as if I was already published and would ask myself what would I do and the would always be write, so I'd write.

@Happiness in Love
Thanks for the help for Lexi and the links.

@Srinivas
Awesome! I hope you enjoy the blog and join in on the conversation over there.

[Steve @ Freedom Education]

Hi Gretchen,

Alex's comment got me thinking. He said,

"We tell ourselves 'Someday my ship will come in' and so put off making choices, believing that somehow happiness will come to us without having to act."

... and I guess my thoughts are that if someone is waiting "for their ship to sail in" or for the right circumstances to show up in their life then they are also making a choice. Choosing to do nothing is a choice too.

It's like if I asked you if you would like some ice cream and I said, "Do you choose Vanilla or Chocolate ice cream?" and you say, "I don't like those choices, so I choose neither," which is still a choice.

Your thoughts?

[J.S. Brooks]

What great ideas. This is similar to what C.S. Lewis discussed in Mere Christianity. Lewis suggested that if you don't know how to do something you want to do (such as communicate with others, write, help others--but not say neurosurgery) just pretend that you know what you're up to. Lewis stated that if you pretend long enough and act like you know what you're doing one day you'll wake up and discover you really do know how to do that thing through practice and pretending. Looks like it works for happiness and dreams as well.

[Alex Fayle]

@Steve
Yes, exactly - everything is a choice, including not making a choice. Unfortunately too often people make that non-choice unconsciously thinking that they have no options. It's the whole living with the autopilot on thing.

@J.S.
I love the writing of C.S.Lewis and I couldn't agree more with that idea - thanks for adding it!

[Steve @ Freedom Education]

@ Alex

Speaking of being on autopilot, I was listening to an audio by Bruce Lipton (author of Biology of belief). He said that 95% of our beliefs come from the age of 0-5 years old because it's at this age when our brain waves are in the "theta" state where our unconscious mind is open to new information download. He also said that 95% of our behavior originates from those beliefs, which really starts to make me think:

"Are any of us really thinking consciously?"

[Alex Fayle]

@Steve
I agree that most of us live inside Plato's Cave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_cave) and I suppose if we're lucky enough to experience life from 0-5 with a family that regularly questions their own beliefs and at least takes a peek out of the cave every once in a while, then we too will be more prone to break the expectations of society and make conscious choices.

But that I believe that the 5% has a strong impact on us as well because I know a whole lot of people who are very consciously different from what they were raised with.

Good food for thought though. Thanks!

[HappinessnLove]

@J.S.Brooks:
What a great comment.I am going to experiment with "Acting as if" and see for myself.