Happiness is not a thing, it’s a process

Everyone wants to have a happiness life, but not everyone can have it. One of the reasons is that they don’t know happiness is a process.

Just as lots of people I grew up thinking that happiness was a quantity that I can get and keep something I either had or I didn’t. I was taught different kinds of ways to get what I needed, but the basic concept was generally that no matter what I needed, including happiness, was an facial thing that was subject to having or not having to getting and holding.

No things I educated prepared me for the truth about happiness. I have finally understood that happiness is not an item to be got; it’s a practice. Happiness is not a thing; it’s a process. That understanding positively flies in the face of years of information radiated into my consciousness by all types of sources including the most obvious product advertisements but it is the way happiness works.

A couple of years after my strokes I began to work with the subject of happiness. I had a life ahead of me dealing with the aftermath of the harm and I had learned that attitude plays an important part in recovery. So I thought I would see what I could do about my general state of mind.

I began with an easy affirmation. There is a Buddhist practice of loving kindness which hopes happiness for all people. I began to practice this affirmation regularly with an addition. I intentionally included myself. Every morning as I sent out good wishes I would say, “May all beings be happy. May I be happy.” That was novel. Wishing myself happiness was something I had never intentionally done before. I didn’t know what this might do for me but decided it was worth the effort to test to see what would happen.

This started my practice of being happy. First I set the intention. No matter what arrives into my life, easy or difficult, may I be happy. Having set the intention and having said it often enough to myself, one day it occurred to me to notice and understand what happened when I felt happy. So I started to inspect what in my day to day life gives rise to happiness.

The answer became quite clear. For me, happiness arises in doing something that is beneficial – something intended to help, not harm. I experience happiness when I read to a grandchild. I can experience happiness while I meditate and the “doing” consists of sitting quietly and noticing. I don’t experience happiness if I am angry and yelling at someone. Because I examined this closely I learned that, for me, it’s the practice of doing that matters – as long as the doing is kind.

Now having learned more about how the mind works, I have come to know that practicing happiness builds links in the brain. Practicing happiness is another form of paying attention. As I pay attention to being happy and to doing things that give rise to happiness, this movement is reflected in the way links between the neurons in my mind develop. While I practice happiness, I build pathways in my brain that reinforce the tendency to be happy no matter what is going on.

Here’s an example. Yesterday, talking with my friend who is a roofer, I knew that I need to replace a part of roof before the rains come. Replacing the roof will spend money and cause some level of disruption. Getting or not acquiring a new roof is a thing. It’s not a reason to be happy or unhappy. However, as with everything else that happens, I have a choice. I can use what I do to respond to this situation to practice happiness or practice unhappiness.

As I have trained my brain these last few years, my reply to the news from my colleague invites me to look for the ways this situation will give rise to a chance to practice happiness. I can be kind to my colleague the roofer, doing what I can to make his work easier. I can be thoughtful about how the old roofing is disposed of to be nice to the environment. Each choice I make to practice happiness reinforces the brain pathways that encourage the next practice of happiness. I literally become what I practice. Knowing this, why practice being unhappy?

So we can use intention to make choices in our everyday life to be happy. And we make the thought process in the roof situation as an example. Then you may be very clear to the meant by making a choice to be happy.