The thing about Happiness

I just read an small excerpt from a study done several years ago that basically said winning a large lottery doesn't make many people happy. I struggled with the results. Personally, I thought of all of the day to day tasks (grocery shopping, housecleaning, meal prep and planning, shoveling, weed pulling, etc) that a little bit of coin could eliminate from my personal to-do-list. When looking a little deeper though what the study suggests is that yes, money, and a large amount of it, can make many things easier for you, but ultimately after that initial high of newly obtained fortune you will return to your original level of happiness prior to winning that big jackpot.

It is not uncommon for us as humans to believe that when we dump the lousy spouse, move into a custom home or land the right job that our life will be perfect and we will feel happy. Think about the excitement of a new relationship, new spacious home or new promising job. We feel on top of the world and set. But in time, unless we are mindful of the shift in our perception, the luster wanes in the relationship, the house needs updating and the ideal job feels oppressive. In other words, like the lotto winners, you return to your baseline level of happiness you had prior to obtaining the person, house or job.

I often remind clients that ultimately we need to work on what we own in a soured relationship because it will absolutely without fail show up in the next committed relationship, especially if we branded the cause of our last failed relationship on the other partner. The same goes for that bigger and better home. Nothing beats a new home meeting all of your specifications and amenities but it won't resolve day to day happiness internally, it only gives you a new setting to be miserable.

I offer these suggestions to consider if you are in a place right now where you feel your surroundings, the people in your life or your situation is what is causing you to be unhappy.

1. Find what is good in the situation that is causing you distress. If it is a relationship that is your identified source of misery and it feels all bad all the time, perhaps it means accepting that that isn't exactly true. There was a time when you really enjoyed this person and perhaps the decline in your happiness with the other person involved a collective abandonment of that relationship. Just owning that there is a history, that was good at one time takes away that feeling of having been victimized by that other person in this relationship and allows for healing or separation to occur in a better light.
2.  Take daily ownership and inventories of your moods and thoughts. There is often a pattern of negative thinking and feelings that can minimize the good and maximize the bad. Again, a person who is in a daily state of mind looking to be offended or disappointed will never be let down. What kind of internal business is coloring your view on your world around you?
3. Be grateful for what is in your life. If you are in a state of gratitude you can appreciate things like a bigger home but your happiness isn't contingent on obtaining it. You are able to take pride in your current living arrangement and be grateful that you have a safe place to live. Perhaps your home won't be a home featured in House Beautiful any time soon, but you have heat, running water, a full pantry and frig. Be grateful for what is.
4. Go back to that dream of winning the lottery. Are you at your absolute happiest in the here in now with what you already have? If not continue to play that game of luck but work on your happiness now. Be happy before that lotto lands in your lap and you will truly enjoy it in the long run!

Mary Jackson Lee, LCSW is a psychotherapist with a private practice in Wheaton, IL.


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"The holidays are hard for people"

I heard the comment, "the holidays are hard for people" several times this weekend when being asked about how my busy private practice was going. I think partially it is true that the holidays can bring up a lot of sadness, unresolved problems with family, reminders of what we haven't accomplished as the year closes and for some a feeling that they just didn't have the holiday that they had hoped for or projected in their mind.

I also believe that the holidays at the end of the year are hard to avoid. Any other holiday whether it be Fourth of July, Easter, Memorial Day, can be avoided. Much of life continues on for these holidays grocery stores are open, people can be busy doing other things if they chose to not be with family or friends or don't have family and friends to fill the day with a BBQ or get together. But Christmas is deafeningly quiet if you are not out with family and friends.

Additionally, some people find that the requirement to be with family is upsetting. Dread fills the minds of many who still have unresolved issues with family members or in-laws as they remember they need to spend the day with them. Marriages might feel more strained, financial issues may feel more exacerbated, alcohol can loosen inhibitions, things are said and done and the attempt to have the perfect Christmas comes crashing down.

As a cognitive behavioral therapist I always steer clients to look at what they are thinking in any situation that brings them distress. Christmas can be loaded with distorted thinking patterns.

One such distortion is that we should be able to sideline our internal distress or conflicts for the holidays. On the contrary, for many people they feel more heightened. Yes, ideally we could shelve our differences and be civil with each other, kind even would be an accomplishment. Instead many become more isolating, more judgmental, more excluding of those they hold most in contempt. While it might seem justified what we miss is that it takes mental energy to do this. Ultimately it makes us more bitter, more depressed, angry and leaves the already scarred relationship even more splintered.

So what do we do? How do we go forward into the next year? For many the suggestion that you turn inward and work on your own stuff when someone else is appearing to be your source of upset is not easily swallowed, but it is an effective goal.

Now is a perfect time to start keeping a journal if you don't already. Maybe you begin with a summary of your holidays. What went right? What went wrong? What do you wish you could get a "do over" on? Who really annoyed you? How were you involved in any of the conflicts? In other words, someone can be a pill, but do you sling mud right back over the fence in a justified stance? How do you end up feeling after that mudslinging?

Some relationships do need to end, some need to come to a truce of a basic common sense of respect for the other person or persons. Often we give others the power to make us feel a certain way and again, it is hard to see that no one can make us feel anything. We are in charge of our feelings and our thoughts. We can also choose not to be offended. There is a saying that if you go looking to be offended you will rarely be disappointed.

January traditionally is a month that many adults enter therapy. Overtly it may be linked to the holidays but I generally see folks who had issues worthy of work with a therapist with an onset long before the holidays. The holidays only acted as a spotlight on an already festering wound.

Not everyone has to address their stress with therapy. Once you know better, you do better. Once you accept it isn't your nemesis that makes you miserable you are half way there. You actually have some say in your experience. That is an empowering concept to grip and act on.


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