The secret to happiness

The only difference between happy people and sad people are the stories they’ve chosen to believe about the world and their place in it. If that’s true, it means the secret to a happy life is simple: write hopeful stories. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, but it’s also a lot easier than you think.

The power of made-up stories

“This isn’t real.” That’s what I would tell myself every Monday morning when I was anxious and depressed from a weekend of heavy drinking. I’d be feeling like a loser, like every problem somehow got 10 times worse since Friday. It took me years, but I realized if I could just get a couple good workouts in and some quality sleep, I’d be ok. Reminding myself, “this isn’t real”, helped me quiet the voices in my head so I could sweat and sleep them away. And by Wednesday, I was ok again.

I haven’t had to do that self talk in a while - it’s been years since I’ve had a drink and felt that way. But I was talking to my son yesterday who was feeling lonely and depressed. He isn’t loving school, he’s gotten out of his workout routine, and many of his friends are back at school 2 hours away while he’s still living at home going to college. We all feel this way sometimes, like everyone else is moving faster than us or towards something we haven’t found for ourselves yet. And I was reminded of my old Monday mornings.

Because, again, none of this real. Just like my problems didn’t magically get 10 times worse over the weekend, my son’s future hasn’t changed. He’s smart, talented and in school doing something he likes enough, for now. He’s 20 years old and I reminded him that he doesn’t have to have his life’s purpose decided. The pressure young people feel to find a career is insane, when they don’t even know who they are yet. They’ll have 10 careers by the time they retire, whatever that means. Just find something you enjoy and someone is willing to pay you for. That’s it. And if you don’t know what that is, that’s ok. Be curious. Talk to people. Try different things.

Sorry, that’s not really what this is about. The point is that it’s all made up. Anxiety, fear - they’re just stories our brains have concocted. And yes, so is hope and excitement for something that has yet to come. They’re all stories that make us happy or sad. And we can decide which ones to believe. If none of it’s real anyway, why not choose the stories that make us feel hopeful and unstoppable?

Battling our primitive monkey brains

If you’re thinking, it can’t be that easy, you’re right. The deck is stacked against us. Us humans have evolved with a negativity bias, meaning we are hard-wired for fear. It’s adaptive and keeps us alive. Our ancestors that lied in the grass marvelling at the beauty of the world, they’re gone. They got eaten. The ones that were scared of what that rustling was is in the bushes, they lived. They passed their scared-shitless genes onto us. The default setting for our brains is to dream up negative stories to keep us afraid and alive. So if we do nothing and let our brains take the wheel, we’ll have nothing but negative stories to obsess over. Unfortunately, it takes work to counteract our brain’s wiring and consciously decide to create positive stories. It’s unnatural. But it just takes practice.

Just don’t call it journaling

I’m sure there are lots of self-help techniques out there designed to turn you into the happiest version of yourself. The only one I’ve found that works is journaling. Now before you close your browser and run for the hills, I’m tired of journaling too. Actually, I’m not tired of journaling, I’m tired of people telling me to journal. My wife told me to do it for 20 years before I started. The only reason I finally did was pure boredom. I was at my son’s beside after his brain surgery, it was 3am and I had doom-scrolled to the end of the internet. I stumbled on a journaling app on my phone I didn’t even know was there. I opened it up and started typing. And I couldn’t stop.

There are two types of people in the world - those that journal and those that don’t. And I’m guessing that every person that journals has a story like mine. Nobody starts journaling when life is great. It’s usually done to deal with something bad happening, to the point where you’re finally ready to try something new - maybe something someone has been telling you to do for years. If this is true, it means nobody is ever going to start journaling until they have to, and it’s a complete waste of time to try to get people to do it before then.

So yes, please journal if you don’t already. I know you probably won’t, but I still hope you do. Rick Rubin said, “It might not be possible to know who you are without first expressing it.” I never really understood that line until I starting journaling. Now, writing is everything. It’s the only way I know how to expand my ideas and understand what I have to offer this world that no one else can.

And the best part, I choose what stories to write. Nobody else. And I choose hope over fear. Every day.