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What is the recipe for happiness? The answer will be different at your church, on TV, and at your therapist’s office. Like a fish in water, we are swimming in ideas of how to be happy. Like that fish who probably doesn’t think much about the water, we may forget that we are constantly under other people’s influence. Some think happiness is vacations in the Caribbean every year, being able to pay your child’s way through college, and the security of having insurance plans that cover all of life’s potential pitfalls. It’s retiring at 65. It’s a latte and a scone. It’s a great car. Or is it? Maybe happiness is simple living. It’s reducing our spending and overcoming the addiction to stuff. It’s slowing down and letting the rat race pass us by.
Regardless of who you listen to, your parents, the media, the latest Snickers commercial, you are smart enough to know that nobody really has the answer for you and certainly a candy bar or any other tangible thing will not do it for you in the long run. But what will deliver lasting happiness? Where do you go to get the answer to one of life’s most important questions?
My friend Sita makes a mean cup of Chai. It’s sweet and milky and has the most amazing aroma that comes from the crushed cardamom pods she uses. But it’s very different than the Chai I get at my local bookstore or the Chai made in other East Indian-American homes. In fact, as she explained to me once, each family has their own recipe shaped to their own tastes. There is no one correct Chai recipe. There is only the recipe that you and your family most enjoy. Happiness is like that. The recipe cannot be engineered by somebody else and applied to you. It’s a recipe you must tinker with and perfect yourself.
As a therapist I enjoy helping people develop their own recipe for happiness through values work. Values are like a GPS that guides us in the direction of what truly matters. Values are distinct from goals. Unlike goals, they can’t really ever be reached or achieved. For example, one of my values is kindness. I’ll never stop having opportunities to practice kindness and I’ll never be able to be completely kind all of the time to everyone, at least not as long as there are mosquitoes and telemarketers. Values have to be lived, but you don’t need to remodel your life to live them. Even minor adjustments in how we behave can make a big difference.
Another value of mine is creativity, so one thing I do to honor that is to try a new recipe each week. Another way I live creativity is to spend some time each week writing. I resist the gravitational pull to the sink full of dirty dishes and spend an hour of unassigned time writing instead.
A value may be something held in common by many people, or it may not be. We may not actually value many of the things that we are “supposed to” value. A value is something that is meaningful to you, regardless of whether it is meaningful to anyone you know, your family, your friends, or your role models. One way to determine if your value is truly yours is to ask yourself whether engaging in behaviors related to the value actually gives you a sense of vitality.
Like a cup of Chai, your values have to be tasted and nobody can tell you what your best recipe should taste like. A life in which you spend a lot of your time engaged in actions that are an expression of your true values is a life full of vitality, passion, and satisfaction. If you don’t believe me try it. Spend a Saturday engaged in what really matters uniquely to you. There are many resources online for clarifying what your values are and shaping your life ever more toward living them. Here is one http://www.thehappinesstrap.com/upimages/Complete_Worksheets_2014.pdf
Ram Daas is famous for saying that everyone is on their own trip and that we need to respect our own and each other’s unique journeys. Though we are connected each of us is also on a distinct journey and it follows that each path must include different longings, aspirations, and experiences. Your values are not meant to be like everyone else’s.
It’s true that there is no way to be happy all of the time, in fact, as Dr. Russ Harris points out in his book, The Happiness Trap, expecting to feel happy all of the time has major pitfalls. But it is possible to be happier more of the time and to experience a higher quality happiness than you have ever felt before.
© Christa Smith 2016
