Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.
I'm Dr.
Robert Puff.
When we think about happiness and having a good life,
I believe there's a very strong tendency to say this will happen when everything is going well.
I go to the restaurant.
I get right in.
The table is nice.
The atmosphere is pleasant.
The waiter is very attentive.
My partner,
Who I'm with,
I enjoy.
The food was exquisite and the bill was reasonable.
So I leave that evening and say,
I'm happy.
I had a good night because everything went well.
But another day,
I wake up.
I have an important event to get to at work.
When I go to get in the car,
I can't find my keys.
I look everywhere and finally I find them hidden in a pocket.
So I'm already 15 minutes behind.
I get on the road and sure enough,
There's traffic,
A lot of traffic.
And I'm delayed.
I'm not going to make my meeting.
I have to call in and apologize.
And I just start screaming,
Why does this happen?
Why?
And life is not at that moment a happy life.
And I think for most people,
Both of these situations make sense.
Things go well,
We're happy.
Things don't go well,
We're not happy.
That seems reasonable.
That makes sense.
But unfortunately,
Though most people live this way,
There's a definite threat,
A definite danger to our happiness if we embrace this philosophy of life.
But what is this philosophy,
Dr.
Puff?
It's basically the fact that we're happy based upon what's going on in our lives.
If we are on a beautiful vacation,
We're having lots of free time and our health is good,
Our families well,
We're not going in debt to be on this vacation.
And there's a good job to go home to.
And we like the people around us that we work with.
And dot,
Dot,
Dot,
The list can be quite long.
So those happy experiences are fading,
And they change.
And because of that,
There's always a threat to our happiness when we look for it externally.
And mostly it's because we just can't control so many things of life.
I mean from the weather,
From the traffic to who we interact with,
To our parents,
There's just so many different factors that we can't control.
The world economy,
Our friends and family's health and their situations.
When we look externally for happiness,
There's just going to be that constant threat,
That fear that something's going to go awry and we're going to struggle.
It's almost like holding our breath and waiting to get punched in the stomach.
Because if we've lived long enough,
Sooner or later,
We know we're going to get punched.
So when it comes to happiness and peace of mind on a consistent basis,
I believe we have two choices.
And the first one may surprise you,
Because in both situations,
It's one most of us won't choose.
Now,
The first option,
I'm hoping I don't have to tell us not to choose this one,
Because it's a horrible path.
But in truth,
For a little while,
As long as we keep doing this one thing,
We'll be well.
But it comes with incredible,
Incredible price tag.
And that's addictions,
Particularly to drugs,
Hard drugs,
Or even alcohol.
Addictions work.
They keep us on that steady state,
In a sense of we can block all the pain of the world and still feel okay,
Emotionally that is.
For example,
Think of a heroin addict,
An extreme case.
A woman may detest having anything to do with a stranger when it comes to sexuality.
But as long as she's taking the heroin or say crack,
These hard drugs,
She can be a prostitute and sleep with six,
Seven,
Eight different men every day and feel fine as long as she keeps taking that drug.
Of course,
Most of us will never do this,
Because we see the price tag that comes with it.
A huge price tag,
A horrible price tag.
The same is true.
It's not quite as strong.
It's with alcohol.
By so many people around the world,
They say up to 10%,
Maybe even 20,
Become alcoholics because they don't want to feel pain.
We turn towards substance abuse addictions.
Nowadays the opiates,
That is quite rampant here in the US,
We turn to them because we just don't want to feel pain.
We want to feel good all the time.
And if we choose this path,
We will feel good while we're on the substance.
But as we all know,
It comes with such a high price tag and it ends up being a very meaningless lost life.
I think understanding this though can help us not judge those who turn towards addictions because I think they're doing it because they just want to be happy like we do.
And life sometimes is so hard for people.
They do turn towards addictions to numb the pain and it works temporarily,
Temporarily,
When we're having a bad day,
Taking crack,
Having a bottle of vodka will,
For some of us,
Make us feel better or at least forget the pain.
And then we can go on.
The sad thing is it comes with so many consequences and we never deal with that pain.
So I know most of us would never choose this path,
But be careful because it is a path we can choose.
And if up to 20% of people struggle with it,
I think that means a lot of us need to be very careful,
Particularly when we're having a hard time.
One of the rules I teach people that I work with that really helps avoiding the potential of becoming an addict to anything is that when we're having a bad day,
That is not the day to turn towards something that can become an addiction.
Instead,
Get in nature,
Go for a walk,
Do things that we talk about here in the podcast that can change our heart to become happy and more peaceful.
When we're having a rough day and we turn towards a substance,
Unfortunately,
It will work.
It often does.
It takes away the pain.
And that's how it can start as an addiction is that we realize,
Oh,
This doesn't work.
Drugs are bad,
Not because they're bad.
Drugs are bad because they're so good.
You could be having the most horrible day and as long as you find the right drug,
You'll actually feel fine.
That's the danger of drugs and sometimes alcohol.
They take away the pain,
Any pain,
But with a horrific price tag.
Well,
We are listening to this podcast because we want our lives to go better.
But if we don't want to turn towards substances and if we don't want our external environment to affect us,
How do we find happiness with all the changes of life?
Is there a way?
And of course the answer is yes.
But the biggest thing is we need to change who we are.
And let me explain.
The biggest change we make here,
And this is it,
Instead of looking externally for happiness or turning towards substances for happiness,
We bring our sense of happiness to wherever we go.
Think of it this way.
Imagine we're a candle.
A candle doesn't walk around looking for light.
The candle has light within it.
And what it does is it shines its light everywhere it goes.
And that's what people that are doing well in life do.
They have the happiness within them and they're not looking for it externally.
They bring it with them wherever they go.
And it doesn't really matter what's happening externally.
If their flight gets delayed,
They read a book.
If they're running behind and can't find the keys,
They say,
Well,
That sometimes happens.
If they get to a restaurant and the food wasn't that good,
They say,
Well,
I probably just won't come back here again and maybe I'll go get a dessert somewhere else.
If they have financial debt,
They say,
Well,
I'll try not to do that again and I'll just work towards paying it off.
If they go through a divorce,
They say,
Well,
I didn't sure want that thing to happen,
But now I have new opportunities.
We'll see what happens next.
If they get ill,
They say,
Well,
I'm ill,
But now maybe I get to stay home and watch some good shows I want to catch up on.
I mean,
The list goes on.
And most of us,
Because this is the path truly less traveled,
Most of us would scoff at people like that.
Well,
They're just optimistic.
They're creating stories that aren't even real.
They're just goofballs.
All that may be true,
But in their heart,
They're having a good day all day long.
That's the difference.
So we can mock them.
We can say they're living in a delusional world,
But even if it's delusional,
It's a good world.
And guess what?
It's a world that we can live in.
All we have to realize is that we're not going to find our happiness externally.
We're going to bring it to wherever we go,
Realizing that we have it with us all the time.
We can be as happy as we choose to be,
So why not choose to be happy?
We're the light.
We're the candle.
And we can illuminate something that we want to focus on and not pay attention to things we don't want to focus on.
It's like having a flashlight.
We can focus on the beautiful things or focus on the ugly things.
And in a room,
There's usually both.
So why not focus on the beautiful things?
In our lives,
There's just really always something beautiful to focus on.
And what people do that do exceptionally well in life,
That's what they focus on because they realize most of the things,
They really can't control either.
They don't get control over their life.
They just choose to focus on things that put a smile on their heart.
That's the difference.
And this isn't always easy.
I mean when we go on a long journey and our flight gets delayed for whatever reason and we're already exhausted,
I mean it's hard sometimes to say,
Well what's the positive here?
What can I focus on that's okay?
Oh,
We get sick and we're on a very tight budget and we can't work and we don't have any reserves.
We can focus on the pain and the tragedy that might be coming or we can say,
Okay,
All I can do is focus on living one breath at a time.
And that's what I'm going to focus on.
I'm not going to worry about how this is going to unfold.
I'll work on it when I can,
But mostly I'm going to realize that if I'm going to have a good life,
Then I have to choose where my energy,
Where my light gets focused on.
Does it get focused on the things that are hopeful,
The things that are beautiful right now or does it kind of look out into the darkness and try to see the tragedy that might be following us in the near or far future?
It's a choice.
I like visualization and this might be a good way as we go through our day of visualizing our lives.
Okay,
Like I said,
We're all that candle that's always lit.
We always have a light,
But the question to ask ourselves is how is our light working?
For a few on one end of the spectrum,
They're giving off radiation or gamma rays and everywhere they go,
Their light is actually destroying things around them.
These are dark,
Very angry,
Cruel people that truly have miserable lives.
I mean,
Almost none of us are going to fall into that camp,
But for most of us,
Our light is actually not shining out too much.
Mostly what it's doing is looking around and saying,
Okay,
What's my environment?
Well,
My environment is good.
I'm going to be a good light.
If my environment is bad,
Then I'm going to be a dark light.
We are letting the external world affect our light instead of us shining forth and affecting the world around us.
That's almost everybody.
Now what we want to do,
If we truly want to find happiness,
Is we want to be the light that's shining on everything.
I mean,
The light doesn't choose where it shines.
A candle light just shines.
So when we're out and about,
We're kind of radiating that beauty,
That love.
And you know,
When there is things around us that aren't as beautiful,
We probably would just walk away from it or focus on something else.
Because as I often say,
There really is something beautiful in any situation.
There just is.
And people that are living up to this level realize they bring the light with them.
The external environment really doesn't even matter.
It's more that they realize that if that light's going to shine,
Regardless of what's happening around them,
It's going to shine.
And because they now realize it comes from within,
And it has almost nothing to do with the external world,
Then what's happening in the external world won't affect their light.
And in many ways,
The nice thing about this,
The beautiful thing about this is,
They are the ones that when you run into them,
There's a warmth you feel from them.
There's a gentleness,
There's a peacefulness.
And you can almost feel their light.
And it's so beautiful.
So what if we today decided that I'm going to stop looking externally for my happiness.
Instead,
I'm going to realize I bring it with me.
And I can,
In any situation,
Shine forth my light onto the situation.
I may not change it,
But what I'll do is I'll change me.
And I won't let the external situation affect my internal sense of peace and happiness.
We can do this.
I know it's hard because it's letting go of all external expectations.
All desires and fears go away.
And what we're left with is the peace.
But what we do is,
We bring that peace everywhere we go,
So that no matter what life gives to us,
We realize that life is now a beautiful adventure.
Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.
If you are finding these episodes helpful,
I would love for you to share your experience with others.
The easiest way for new people to listen to this podcast is just refer them to www.
Happinesspodcast.
Org.
That's happinesspodcast.
Org.
Or if you want to do more and leave a review,
On that site you'll find a Yelp link,
A Google Plus link,
A testimonial link,
Or perhaps even the site you're listening to this podcast on.
Often you can leave reviews there too.
The reviews are an awesome way to encourage people to start listening to the Happiness Podcast.
And until next time,
Accept what is,
Love what is.
