Poor, Pitiful Me: The second form of unhappiness is more subtle but also surprisingly common. The star of this show is an individual’s quiet but ongoing disappointment in who he/she is and how life has turned out. Nothing is quite what you had hoped it would be… the dreams you once had linger unexplored and unfulfilled… every day is perceived to be another experience of living in a flat and ordinary fashion.
This, too, can be corrected, but Lauren notes that it requires real effort because to do so requires taking on a well-known principle of physics, the one that says an object at rest tends to stay at rest. “The difficult part is to set your life in motion — it requires energy, but nothing is going to change if you don’t change,” says Lauren.
In this case, the motion needs to be away from the parts of life where you feel like a victim with no control, no say-so in what goes on. This pattern of thought is what Lauren describes as “habitual unhappiness thinking.” To change this pattern, she urges you to start a list that fills in the blank after “I am unhappy because….” Include every area of your life that makes you glum — whether the state of your health or possibly your home, a diminished income, voids in the areas of activities and friends, lack of energy and/or disappointment in the direction your career is taking.
After writing it all down, ask yourself what specific actions you might take in these areas to spur movement. Even small moves can help kick change into gear, says Lauren. Stop watching TV for a week and see what happens. Call one friend each day, and notice how you feel. Exercise 10 minutes twice a week, and watch how your mood and body change. “Any small effort you make will help you see that you have the power to change your situation, and that will help you feel better,” she says.
Chronic Overachievers: Finally, there are people who seem to be doing it all and have it all — who already have everything that makes for a good life and happiness. They work hard, play hard, exercise, eat well, have friends — so what’s the problem? Lauren says she sees this often in people who should be happy but instead are edgy, moody, not quite satisfied and, well, just a little out of sorts all the time. These are the classic overachievers for whom nothing is ever good enough… which is exactly why they are miserable. They can’t stop pushing for more, and they’ve allowed their dissatisfaction to become the state of their mind. But if unhappiness is a state of mind, says Lauren, then happiness is a state of mind as well. The reality for these people is that they simply don’t know how to be happy — which means that they need to learn.
If you are in this last group, your first lesson is to define what your life would be like if you were happy — that alone can start the process of transformation, says Lauren. What is your ideal way of living and being, the way things would have to be for you to feel happiness? You may be surprised to discover that the changes you need to make are very small.
Begin your project by working on your general outlook. Turn it toward happiness by recognizing the bounty that is your life and feeling gratitude that it is yours and that you created it. Then look for the small tweaks you could make to your everyday existence to improve its quality. If you feel that your life is too harried, what could you do to bring a greater stillness into it? If you feel disconnected from your loved ones, how about making up a schedule to follow that brings you together more regularly? If you miss reading, turn off the TV early each evening… and read. Simple things all, but all lead to meaningful change.
“People are destined to evolve and grow,” says Lauren. “The moral of the story here is that if you are unhappy, it is because you have allowed yourself to be that way. Once you realize this, you can allow yourself to make it different — and be happy. ”
