Day 19 of 50 ideas in 50 days is Happy For No Reason by Marci Shimoff. This is perhaps one of the best titles ever of any self-help book and there is lots of wisdom in it’s pages. Happy For No Reason is not about the highs and lows of happiness, it’s being haapy, content and at peace with yourself. Marci says, “it isn’t elation, euphoria, mood spikes or peak experiences that don’t last….when you are happy for no reason, you can have any emotion but you still experience that underlying state of peace and well-being.
Philosophers Notes gives a very thought provoking quote from The Upanishads
, “Happiness for any reason is just another form of misery.” Circumstances fluctuate so rapidly and because of the impermanence of all things, the reason you are happy will not stay the same, it will change like everything else. We can be happy for bad reasons like drugs and alcohol, good reasons like relationships and career. However, happy for no reason is living from happiness rather than for happiness.
Marci quotes Thomas Jefferson who said that the common use of the word ‘pursue’ was not to ‘chase after’ something but to practice an activity and make a habit of it. This integrates it into your everyday life so it becomes natural, it is not something just out of reach to be chased. Marci says, “people with high happiness ’set points’ are human just like the rest of us. They don’t have any special powers…they just have different habits. Psychologists say that at least 90% of all behaviour is habitual. So to become happier, you need to look at your habits.”
Marci talks about the power of neuroplasticity, a subject that I am extremely interested in, and the fact that we are re-wiring our brains moment to moment, positively or negatively. She says, ”we need to incline our mind to joy” and quotes a beautiful piece of Cherokee wisdom: One evening, a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside of people. He said, “my son, the battle is between two wolves that live inside us all. One is unhappiness, fear, worry, anger and the other is happiness, joy, love, kindness and truth.” The grandson thought about this for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “the one you feed.”
A beautiful story and a perfect illustration of how what we focus on or ‘feed’ increases. There is plenty of room inside your amazing brain to increase your happiness habits – every day.
