The happiness equation!
Life has been good to me and I feel luckier than ever to be in the place I am today. While I was never a sad student, I never felt fully happy either. Because of Independent Learning and Motivation in my schedule I had the opportunity to participate in this course project that opened my eyes to the ideas of happiness. After reading the book The Happiness Equation by Neil Pasricha, I have boiled the idea of happiness to one thing; self love and appreciation.
One big lesson that Pasricha pushes in the book is “be happy, but first do it for you.” This really resonated with me. Past semesters I felt as though I was just trying to be happy for the people around me. I have the most supportive friends who are constantly making me laugh and have a good time. I never wanted to bring them down with a negative or stressed out attitude, so instead I would tell myself to be happy for them. Through this book I learned that being happy should be something you do for your own well being. In order for those feelings to be genuine you need to step up to the plate for you, and nobody else.
My entry for this blog is titled How to want nothing, do anything and have everything! Shhh, this is the secret equation. This is how you find internal happiness. I have dedicated these three parts of the equation to this semester and have learned an immense amount of knowledge about myself and what makes my world go round.
Want Nothing:
So, want nothing? What exactly does this mean. It doesn’t mean to give up what you have and live a life as a minimalist. Rather, this means finding content in what you have. For me, wanting nothing really boiled down to me only worrying about me. Last year I constantly found myself comparing my test scores, job offers, and extracurricular activities to everyone else’s. This added so much unnecessary stress to my life. I learned that once you realize what you have is what makes your world yours, you can find that you are lacking nothing. Another big issue I have is focusing to much on the future and forgetting to live in the moment. This ties into wanting nothing because now instead of planning ahead for big things, I just let the big things come to me. I live without anxiety and dependence of the plan or the bigger picture. With the anxiety of planning removed from my life, I am worlds happier. A strategy I used for wanting nothing was to write down what I was thankful for each day. I started off writing 10 things at the end of every week, but as the semester went on I found it much more effective to just write down one thing I was thankful for or one thing that made me happy that day, at the end of each day before I went to bed. I tracked this on my computer! Below is an example of some of the dates and what I wrote down.
Do Anything:
Do anything is the second part to this secret equation. This does not mean say yes to everything and skydive and be rebellious. Rather do anything means having the courage to do the things that make you happy no matter what that means to other people. You should be able to live the life you want to live without worrying about what other people expect of you. One of the major lessons I learned from this was letting myself do the things I love to do at the cost of studying less. I worried so much about my studies and my grades in previous years to a point where I let go of the things I loved. This year I have let myself do anything, as long as my grades and homework was well managed. I started each week with my planner and wrote down all that was due. I would add studying and amount of time needed for that studying in the book. This then allowed me to set time aside each week to do anything that I loved. I wouldn’t plan those activities out because I wanted to let my future self decide in that moment what I wanted to do with this new found extra time. If I knew of some plans as they came up in the week I would add them to my planner. For example below I added “going to breakfast with Kayla” after she asked me to do that on Thursday!
So whether this be going out with friends to a movie, reading in bed or watching my favorite news cast at night, I allowed myself to do those things. Getting back into the groove of what I loved made me really happy and genuinely feel better about the world around me. I was happy because I was doing what made me happy.
Have Everything!
I now know what it feels like to have everything. It’s all about expectations. There is no need for any of us to feel like we don’t have enough if we set our expectations right. I focused more on the things that I can control and that turned me into someone who has everything. Through this I have found self love and now I feel as though I can take on anything because of everything that I have. I have amazing friends, parents who support me through anything, great jobs on campus, grades that will get me a degree and a work ethic that can’t be beat. I love myself, love what I have and through this project I have learned that. The strategy I used here was just learning day by day what got me out of bed. I took notes on the days that I felt accomplished when going to bed. If I went to bed feeling as if I didn’t have a good day, I would sit and think about why. Slowly I learned the repeat events that made me feel as though I had a bad day and took those components out of my life. Whether that be not going to the gym, or forgetting an assignment, then I would make sure at the beginning of the next day to get that assignment done or go to the gym! Below is an example of a picture of my roommates and I and it makes me so happy! So I wanted to share. I am my happiness equation. I make me happy, and you should too!
