To celebrate my birthday this year, I had a Data barbecue party. In lieu of gifts, I asked each guest to be prepared to share some interesting knowledge with me. They could tell me about something about which they were an expert, or something they had read recently, or go on Wikipedia and randomly pick a few facts.
The party turned out surprisingly well, and I was fascinated by the variety of data presented to me. One friend brought some rope and taught me how to make some basic knots; another gave me a list of Amazon’s top-selling titles ranked by their readability scale; a nurse practitioner friend of mine shared strange and cool facts about the body. The information itself was interesting, but equally interesting was the choice of subject that each of my friends made.
One of my friends talked to me about happiness. He had been involved in a personal happiness research project over the past several months. His gift was telling me the number one most effective technique he had found for increasing personal happiness. (Which, by the way, ranks in top gifts received ever. Who needs a bunch of stuff if one knows how to be happy, right?)
His discovery was very simple, and I recognized it right away as a technique I have sometimes used myself, never knowing that I had accidentally stumbled upon Knowledge. Now this advice is permanently lodged in my head, readily accessible in case of emergency (or just general unhappiness). Ready for it? This is what he told me to do:
Think of five things that you’re happy about. Do this every single day.
Read it again. Its very simplicity is what makes it so effective. It’s not very difficult to think of five happy things. And it doesn’t take very long. And yet in the process of so doing, you’re restructuring the way your brain works.
Fast forward to now. I’ve been having a bit of a tough time lately. For starters, I’ve been really sick. And my tooth broke. And it just went on from there. At a certain point, the snowball effect kicked in when the negative thoughts built on each other, and suddenly I felt negative about things I wouldn’t normally have a problem with. I was framing the story of my life from an unhappy point of view, and I’d lost all sense of perspective. Eventually this led to insomnia, which just served to feed the cycle further. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Or maybe not. Because instead I remembered my friend’s present to me. Before bed I took a soothing hot bath and told my husband every single good thing about the past year I could possibly think of. Not just five, but all of them. Luckily, once I get started I’m very good at thinking of positive things. I think this skill might be part of the reason why I’m happy a lot. (Also because little things make me pretty happy, and after a while little things add up.)
I slept soundly that night, and the next day I felt ten times better, and therefore much more able to deal with the real challenges I was facing. The next night, I only thought of a couple good things, but that was enough because I had spent the whole day framing my life in a more positive way. I had believed what my friend told me at my party, but it took dramatic results for the knowledge to really sink in.
Do I think that anyone who tried this technique would get equally fast and dramatic results? No, probably not. I’ve spent years programming my mind to think more positively, after all. But I do think it’s a worthwhile exercise. People spend so much time worrying and hurting and complaining and seeing the bad side and being self-critical. Setting aside a few minutes for happiness sounds pretty reasonable.
Have you thought of five things that make you happy yet? Feel free to share them in the comments. Or e-mail me and tell me about them. Or keep them to yourself. As long as you think them, that’s what matters.
The idea of a data party is brilliant. I’m going to have to try that.
Thank you. To be honest, I was a little worried it wouldn’t work well, but everyone got really into it. It definitely livened up the conversations too. I’ll probably do it (or something similar) again.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeremiah Tolbert and Andy Romine, Amy Sundberg. Amy Sundberg said: New Blog Post: How to Try to be Happy http://wp.me/pYyDR-4N #myblog […]
Data Party, eh? That’s a neat idea!
Now, I tend to be a relatively negative person. Cynical, we’ll call it. Or British. But I’m from Texas so that doesn’t work. Anyway. But lately, there seems to be less to be cynical about. I pinpointed when that happened: when I lost the job I hated.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Working in telecom pays stupid amounts of money. Six figure salaries are awful nice. But what about the cost personally? Even people that love the work hated the work environment, and those were rare. For people like me that didn’t enjoy the work, didn’t like the clients, and still had an overbearing, hyper-stressed work environment, it was pure hell with the only benefit being a huge paycheck every two weeks. Why stay? Turns out I didn’t make the decision to leave, but I think I wasn’t too far from making it on my own.
Here we are almost two years later, writing up a storm, edging closer towards regular sales, and having met a ton of fun and interesting people (props to Amy! 😉
So, things I’m happy about:
Jen (my girl)
Sam (cat)
Roxy (car. Yes, yes, I hear eyes rolling, but Amy can tell you how much I mean it.)
Writing
Colleagues
Even with my hearing going away and money slowly draining down to zero, I’m still happier than having thousands in free cash every month and a pager on my hip. The realization is invaluable.
Good post, Amy. You brightened my day.
Thank you, Eric. I must say, I’ve been incredibly touched by people’s responses to this post. Guess we know what one of my five things will be tonight!
Your car Roxy is truly a beautiful car. Not silly at all. Plus, sometimes it’s okay to be happy about something silly. For instance, the existence of cupcakes. Or sitting by the fire. Whatever works, right?
I’m glad to hear how much happier you are now. Keeping fingers crossed about the writing! 🙂
Love this post! Love the idea for the party too – you’re great at coming up with those!
I was surprised at how easy it really was to come up with five things too! And I swear I did not plagiarize Eric’s list 😛
1. My fiancé
2. Rabbit!
3. I am living where I want to live. Finally.
4. I get to write and tutor for a living.
5. I’m planning my dream wedding.
I feel all gushy and glowy right now. Thanks, Amy!
Thanks, Danielle! You’ve got a wonderful list there. It makes me happy just reading it. 🙂
I went and did this with the missus and will do it again tomorrow. This seems like such a good idea, fits in with much that I know and have experienced. Thanks!
My own grotty trick for dealing with runs of bad luck? I have a threshold, past which trouble becomes redundant and starts seeming silly. “And now I break my leg. That’s just gratuitous, dude. You’ve passed the point of reaction.”
I’m glad you liked it! And yeah, I enjoyed doing it with my husband because it meant I could talk about *his* good things too. 🙂
Sense of humor is key, although I find that sometimes mine takes awhile to kick in. Nothing seems quite as bad after you’ve laughed about it.
Amy Sundberg,
I loved you before, but this makes me love you more. What a fricken awesome post!
According to me, you are:
1) such a good writer
2) such a good love-giver
3) such a good teacher
4) such a good role model for women and girls
5) such a good. . .little dog owner!
Thank you for the reminder, and for the knowledge that you care about yourself, your state of mind, and those you touch. It is awesome.
My five things for this moment are
1) My desire and willingness to self-improve in fun ways
2) My James <3!
3) The anticipation of being called to interview for a massage teaching position (I should find out either way soon after Thanksgiving, yay!)
4) The ability to take deep breaths. . .both in and out
5) My sense of rhythm and the fact that music exists
So, thank you again, Amy Sundberg for being yourself and posting yourself for us to learn from! Yes, I realize I am ending that sentence with a preposition. That's fine.
Take care, and best of all things to you and Yony and your little dog!
Thank you, Amy Fonarow! I love your five things. Especially that music exists — I can’t even imagine a world without it. 🙂
Let me know how the interview goes!
[…] going to be trying out a little experiment for the next few weeks. When I sit down to list my five happy things, I’m going to add something to the end: reminding myself of concrete reasons why I love to […]
[…] How to Try to be Happy […]
[…] celebrate on the blog, I’m writing a birthday edition of five things that make me happy. In this case, I’m choosing five things from the last […]
I was doing some reasearch on free spirts and stumbled on this site. And I have to say what a brilliant site 😀 Amy ur blogs are soo intersting, informative, and just very entertaning 🙂 awesome stuff 🙂
Things that make me happy
1) My Family
2)My Friends
3)My car stella 😛
4)Music.
5)Love
I love your list of five things, Dany! I especially like that your car is named Stella–that is awesome. 🙂