Real Kato Blog: Happiness

Some people are pretty unhappy a lot of the time. How can they stand living like that?

A fundamental part of my belief system is this: We can choose to be happy, or unhappy. I say this often to people; I could swear I wrote an article on this before, but I didn't find one in the eight seconds I spent checking. If this is a repeat, I'm sorry.

Let me make clear that I don't mean to diminish the seriousness of anyone's problems. Some folks have a lot of shit going on, and I know it's a struggle. Sometimes, though, people let themselves get discouraged about things, and they let their unhappiness consume their whole lives. Unhappiness, for them, becomes a vicious self-perpetuating cycle. There is a principle in psychology about this: it is called self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think something will go wrong, you'll probably make it go wrong.

I know of a woman who has gone through some tough times, and I sympathize with her for that. But now, whenever she walks into a restaurant, she finds something to criticize about it, and that prevents her from enjoying her meal. Whenever someone talks about some dream or goal they have, she talks about the obstacles that might get in the way, and everyone feels discouraged. She has this cloud of negativity over her head, and I believe she is making herself miserable; then in turn, her misery makes her more negative.

If I knew her better and I were in a position to counsel her, I would tell her that she has to work to break this cycle. She has to consciously accentuate the positive, especially when interacting with other people. If she were to do that, she would find that people would respond more positively back to her, and suddenly she would put herself on an upward spiral instead of a downward one.

But it's up to her to initiate it. She has to choose to do so. Right now she's probably not even aware that she has this choice... and if I told her, she would probably not believe me. Not at first, anyway.

I'm not saying she should simply ignore the problems in her life, or even downplay them. What she should do, though, is box them up and keep them from contaminating her entire life. If she has a bad day at work, she shouldn't yell at her kids. If she's upset about what's happening with Terri Schiavo, she shouldn't let that ruin her enjoyment of "Lost". It's all about compartmentalizing. And really, given the many problems that we all face, I think it's important that we put even more value and appreciation on the good things we have.

Once there was a study that found that people who considered themselves lucky were not actually any more fortunate than people who didn't. But the ones who thought they were lucky were more likely to try new things and to enjoy their experiences. I found that study to be really interesting.

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