11. Why You Should Stop Trying to be Happy

"Desiring a positive experience is itself a negative experience. And the acceptance of a negative experience is itself a positive experience." 

I got this great quote from Mark Manson. I saw on this YouTube video the other day.
And, I think that's totally true. If you keep trying to be happy, you keep desiring to be happier than you are, then that's a negative experience.

Lani: Caregiving Philosophy
Melissa: Wandering Missy - Start Living the Life You Want. How to find Joy + Purpose in your Life.

Transcript

Stop Trying to Be Happy

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

happiness, feelings, feeling, negative, accept, learn, quote, happy, negative emotions, bag, react, failure, process, emotions, positive, cracks, life, fail, thought, tapping

M
Melissa
0:07
Welcome to happy life story. Melissa
L
Lani
0:10
and I'm Lani. We're discussing how to create your better life story. Lonnie? Hey. Hi, how are you?
M
Melissa
0:22
Good. How's Colombia?
M
Melissa
0:31
Sorry, you're still working water there?
L
Lani
0:34
Yeah, it's a good fire. I got it. Good place with good Wi Fi.
M
Melissa
0:40
And a beautiful view. Perfect, perfect vacation. So today's topic I came up with, which is not too far of an off shoot, I think off of a previous episode that actually I think goes live today. And again, I know we're probably dating ourselves saying where you are and what episode but anyway, talking about why you should stop trying to be happy. That sounds so negative, but it's not mentioned it's actually positive.
L
Lani
1:13
Doesn't sound like people try and try and try so hard. It's that's not good. That means you're not happy.
M
Melissa
1:22
Exactly. It's like it feels like a controversial statement, in a sense. But I think, to find happiness, you have to stop trying to be happy.
L
Lani
1:33
I got this great quote from Mark Manson. I saw on this YouTube video the other day, it said, desiring a positive experience is itself a negative experience. And the acceptance of a negative experience is itself a positive experience. So I think that's totally true. And it's like if you keep trying to be happy, so you keep desiring to be happy, then that's a negative experience.
M
Melissa
2:03
Exactly. That's so funny, because I actually have two quotes from him. In my notes to ally you had mentioned he mentioned him a little while ago when I was new, and I jotted his name down. And I have not read the book that you mentioned, what was that I was started reading a bunch by Mark Manson. And it's so funny how we're both on the same page without knowing that your quote,
L
Lani
2:28
as well. But something like how not to give enough or something? Oh, yes,
M
Melissa
2:32
yes, yes. Yes. Not giving exact which I have not read, but I was reading his blog. And he's got some good articles on that. So it's so anyway, came also have a few quick reference that one that you just said, I'm actually gonna reread through because that that's a good one.
L
Lani
2:56
I really love this, I don't think people actually accept their negative emotions. And that is what causes them even worse emotions, like they build it up, like, I shouldn't be negative, I shouldn't be this and then they are layering and like guilt and shame and everything on top of whatever other negative experience.
M
Melissa
3:17
Absolutely, it's like there should be an emphasis that it's okay to have negative emotions. And oddly, it's like this pressure to seek only happiness that I think is messing with people. Just to the point of that quote that you just said,
L
Lani
3:30
I know. I don't even know why people think that they can be or anyone can be happy all the time. When we learned in coaching about the 55th year of life, like, usually, you're good if you're half 50% feeling good and 60% negative emotions.
M
Melissa
3:50
agreed and that you can't it's impossible to have a 100% positive emotions. Yes, all day every day. It's like it's something that I'm not even sure what you would do if that did happen. And then because I think then to again, back to the quote, then your happiness from keep extending out like you would be seeking something different than just how life became day in and day out. And I saw this other quote, not a quote, I'm sorry, it was a title, a Time magazine article that was titled something like how trying to find happiness is making us miserable. Yeah. And yeah, it's a pressure that people put on themselves seeking it constantly and everything. There's a lot of self help to have about, like, I think around that topic of trying to be happy, becoming happy doing things to make yourself happy, and somehow ends up having more of a negative connotation,
L
Lani
4:49
right. I think everyone's confused about where the happiness comes from. It doesn't come from all those extra or external things like making more money or
M
Melissa
4:59
has That's kind of I think, what I was taught, we had touched on that a couple episodes ago. And that's, you know, I think we had mentioned, perhaps like, you know, when you're planning your trip to Colombia, and the excitement of packing can almost be greater than the actual trip itself, you know, my anticipation and just stepping out of your comfort zone going to a new country, like, those are the things that I don't know if you can say make you happy. But it's because you're, you're challenging yourself, and you're doing something different. And that is where you find heavy feelings.
L
Lani
5:33
I love that, because most people don't want to challenge themselves. And I think challenging yourself is actually a great way to bring about happiness. It's like liquid, I did this to me. And so the process is happiness, right?
M
Melissa
5:48
Yep, the process of getting to a milestone or not getting to your milestone, beat or not achieving something that can also bring you just as much happiness, because you have to challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone, have small failures that teach you something and that you can use for the next time. The next time you want to try something you kind of build, build up internal emotional mechanisms, I guess, for being able to deal with something, even if it was negative. The highs and lows,
L
Lani
6:18
I think the 5050 of life is because half of our brain is going to be that negative fearful. Half anyway. And we have to bring that half of our brain with us that we talked about, in the other episode, we have our brain listens to the motivational triad, seek pleasure, avoid pain, conserve energy. So we're bringing that along with us. So that's why we always are going to have those negative emotions because we have that fearful half of our brain.
M
Melissa
6:48
Exactly. And it's that process of feeling both, you know, or having both both thoughts that eventually lead to those highs and lows and the perpetual process.
L
Lani
7:05
Yeah, you can have like two thoughts at once. I mean, one side of your brain can be like, Okay, we're gonna be all confident today, but the other side can still be afraid. I mean, that's okay. I mean, what's even wrong with being afraid there's nothing wrong with it, and we're gonna make it mean something else.
M
Melissa
7:22
I'm not actually I'm looking at the quote that I had by Mark Manson, which is, the failure to meet our own expectations is not into theoretical to happiness. And I'd actually argue that the ability to fail and still appreciate the experience is actually a fundamental building block for happiness. Exactly what we're talking about,
L
Lani
7:43
right, I I lost my bag. Well, I didn't know if my bag was stolen or something. I went to this other part of town. And I was taking video of myself and then I'm like, oh, no, my bag. I don't know what happened to my bag. Is it stolen? Or were they was looking all around, and I didn't see it. So I lost all my keys and everything. First in my wallet and everything, so it was a bummer. But then I got home and I was looking at the video because I was taking video the whole time it was on the whole time. I never turned off my camera and I saw that I lost the bag way long time before I even thought I did. And so I proved to myself that it's not really the circumstance of like losing my bag that caused my feelings. It was really when I made it mean something like Oh, no, what happened to that? And did I leave it? Did somebody steal it? That's what made me have the bad emotions. It wasn't at all of anything about the bank. So I was perfectly happy walking around. But that
M
Melissa
8:48
was out for a while. Oh my God, no, I have to know what happened. Did you find it?
L
Lani
8:56
No, because I never went back to the that area. It was so far before that I didn't even know looking there before but I did eventually pass by that area. But I didn't look very closely because I thought oh, this is not where I lost it because it was so long time ago. Wow. Good Yeah, looking around like half an hour without the bag
L
Lani
9:26
but luckily, I didn't have any my very valuable stuff in my bag because I was videotaping with my camera and looking at my phone from my script. So I didn't have any expensive stuff in there. Plus, I don't bring around my credit card or anything that I really, and I don't want to lose. So it was just
M
Melissa
9:43
a smart, smart traveling.
L
Lani
9:46
Little bit of stuff, so it wasn't too bad.
M
Melissa
9:49
Oh, clearly that didn't make you too unhappy.
L
Lani
9:53
Then the next day, I was like, Well, I can think of it one way I can think of is like oh that's horrible. Oh horrible me horrible if somebody stole it, whatever. Or I can just say, Oh, I'm so thankful I didn't have all these other things in it was only a little bit of money, you know, only a little bit of this and that so wasn't that bad.
M
Melissa
10:14
But one of my thoughts I like to have when something like that happens is that they needed it more than I do.
L
Lani
10:19
And exactly, exactly that is almost exactly what I thought I kept thinking, Well, I must have left it because it to me, me leaving it somewhere better than somebody else feeling it, of course. So me I was thinking, Oh, I must have just left it somewhere and somebody lucky person found it. They're so lucky, because I counted it out was like 75,000 of their money was a lot to them. But that was only $15 to me. So it's like they needed to do more than I did anyway. So it's nothing to me.
M
Melissa
10:52
It's a little bit of a little bit of good came from something that Yeah. construed as negative.
L
Lani
11:01
That's positive. Now how are you looking
M
Melissa
11:04
at all perception? Yeah.
L
Lani
11:06
So that the Mark Manson thing, acceptance of a negative experience can be a positive experience. Like, yeah, I accepted, it was fine. I didn't dwell on it, and then just went on moved on with my life.
M
Melissa
11:21
Don't you potentially help somebody? You never know.
L
Lani
11:26
It's gone with gratitude. I think gratitude is something that everybody can try to find.
M
Melissa
11:32
I feel like we talked about this on a previous episode as well, like you could have reacted and went around every stall or every area yelling and screaming, where's my stuff and, you know, like, when someone cuts you off, or the light, right, instead of just realizing that, okay, it's gone. And you know, some some hopefully, somebody benefits from your loss. They find they find that little happy silver lining. In your bag.
L
Lani
12:01
It's all what you make it mean in your mind, which is just ideas and stories that you make up in your mind. So might as well make it mean something good.
M
Melissa
12:11
Absolutely. I like that.
L
Lani
12:13
Okay, so our theme was why you should stop trying to be happy. And that quote is that you want to accept a negative experience. And that in itself is a positive experience. So I wanted to go over how we accept negative experiences, how we accept negative emotions, because lots of people don't know how to do that. And I recently came across this way to accept your emotions. Have you ever heard of EFT Emotional Freedom Technique? I've heard of freedom, but I'm not familiar with also called tapping?
M
Melissa
12:46
Oh, yes, yes, yes. Okay. That's what popped into my head when you said yeah, yes.
L
Lani
12:50
So like we learned in Life Coach School, we can just like go in our body, find the emotion, like, find the feeling, because our emotions are actual feelings, you know, vibrations in their body, like tight stomach, or whatever. And we can see the shape and everything like that. But this one goes one step further, which I really like, you're tapping on all these points on your body, which is like these Chinese meridian points, Chinese acupuncture points. And you're saying, like, even though I feel whatever emotion you feel, and I'm thinking, this, whatever thought I'm feeling, and I'm feeling this in my body, even though I'm feeling those, I deeply and completely accept myself and my feelings. So you're tapping around these places, and you're saying that I feel this, I think this, but I'm accepting myself the way I am. I'm accepting my feelings. So it's really, really useful. I like that a lot. Because you're using your hands and you're doing a lot of different actions to also and you're also accepting your feelings the way they are, you're not trying to immediately like change, like, I shouldn't be thinking that I have an exam, I feel angry. And I think my mom should mind your own business. And I feel hot pressure in my head. But I deeply accept myself and my feelings.
M
Melissa
14:13
So I like that, and I need to explore more, but I even like the fact that it kind of takes you out of it, you're in it, and you're out of it at the same time to kind of look at it,
L
Lani
14:23
and you're looking at it. Exactly. And you're doing all these other things,
M
Melissa
14:27
which is very helpful, especially if you're a reactionary type of person that feels something and then takes it to the next level quickly. You know, so to have that in your tool belt, you know, a ways to discover your feelings or to work with your feelings. I like that a lot.
L
Lani
14:44
Right? That's the perfect time when you said people usually react like you feel something and you react react. That's what most people do. But if you notice and you feel something then you that's when you do this thing. So oh, I'm feeling this. So that's why I'm going to do this thing instead of reacting, I'm going to do this tapping around my self and say these feelings are fine, these feelings are normal, I'm accepting these feelings. And you're gonna do that instead of reacting. So that's calming yourself down.
M
Melissa
15:15
I really like that. Yeah, obviously, the outcome will be, I would think, potentially more positive, positive may not be the right word, but it would be less less reactionary, and therefore, more within your control of how you want to react and feel about something, feeling
L
Lani
15:33
bringing down the level of the reaction. So we, you can think, Oh, how do I want to react next?
M
Melissa
15:42
Excellent. And not that we can digress. This might be a digression. But I know you and I have discussed before about how, you know, in the Life Coach School, when we did learn about feeling things that sometimes I had a problem, feeling feelings, you know, yeah, and I don't mean that I'm opposed to, there's nothing in me that can feel feelings, because I've had a broken heart, I've felt that, you know, there are times that I feel things but a lot of times I can't, and I'm using this exercise might actually help someone like me, who, who maybe isn't as in touch with my feelings, and feeling or understanding what feeling my feelings, like as a physical being, that might help me. And YouTube,
L
Lani
16:25
because I'm the same, I'm the same way I don't. I'm like, what I'm feeling the feeling in my body, I didn't even know there was such a thing. So I really liked this, because I've seen, like, instead of that part where you say, where you're feeling in your body, like I feel pressure in my stomach, you can just say, I feel the thought in my head, that when you're, you know, I'm thinking that that in my head, and you know, keeps going round and round in my head and that I'm feeling angry, or I'm feeling sad. But this keeps going over and over in my mind. But as you're tapping through the points, but I still accept myself and I accept my feelings are
M
Melissa
17:04
very helpful, like a very helpful way to process through, especially for people like you and I, I guess that didn't really I didn't really understand how I was supposed to process feelings like that. So to me, when I say feeling, there's feelings and feeling, right, and the the feeling of the feeling,
L
Lani
17:25
we notice the emotion that we feel. Notice the actual feeling at the body.
M
Melissa
17:30
So that's very helpful. So that is something I will definitely look
L
Lani
17:34
into. Yes, I found it very helpful.
M
Melissa
17:38
And I've been hearing about it more and more, too. And I just never heard until now. I've taken the time to learn more about it. But now I will. Thank you for bringing it up. Yeah. And then I think the final quote that resonated but probably goes back a little bit further, further back to the first few minutes when we were talking was this quote that he had that said, quote, so I raise your expectations elongate your process, lay on your deathbed with a to do list a mile long, and smile at the infinite opportunity granted to you create ridiculous standards for yourself and then savor the inevitable failure. Learn from it. Live it let the ground crack and rocks crumble around you because that's how something amazing grows through the cracks. I guess it couldn't even just use that last line, like something amazing goes through the cracks.
L
Lani
18:30
Oh, I love that or I can get the visual in my mind is so Exactly.
M
Melissa
18:35
Again, it's back to the point where failure is just a stepping stone or failure opens the door to something else failures a new opportunity. And
L
Lani
18:44
sadly, it's just, to me a learning experience. It's just part of learning it. You don't have to make it mean anything negative, you can just mean something.
M
Melissa
18:55
I think it took me being 54 years old to realize that 5352 Maybe just in the last few years that I really taken the time to think through these these sort of things, because I don't think I would have given the attention to that. Like I would now like where it's okay, it's absolutely okay for mistakes to happen for disappointments to happen. They're all part of the plan or they're all meant to lead to something else.
L
Lani
19:23
So I just made a YouTube video. Just make a YouTube video on my channel expanding happiness. And the video title is named never fail again. exact subject I was mentioning that I used to be a science teacher so we would always do the scientific method and you just can't fail with the scientific method. You just started learning something the whole process is just for learning and there's no way to fail.
M
Melissa
19:56
And I love how that message is just so on point right now. on the back that someone can go see it and let me watch it and, and and learn a little bit more on this. Yeah, perfect timing.
L
Lani
20:10
Thank you. Yeah.
M
Melissa
20:13
I'm glad to share that. But as you can see, this is definitely a question that while may sound negative at the outset, you know, definitely it's I think a more positive you know, way of looking at this constant pursuit of happiness can be it can be viewed, you know, through different glasses,
L
Lani
20:33
when you're accepting all your emotions, everything that's actually makes you have a happy life. You're testing everything.
M
Melissa
20:42
Exactly. And that I think not I'm trying to force us to end but I like that. That's, that could be a perfect ending.
L
Lani
20:48
Thank you. I'm good.
M
Melissa
20:53
Thank you. Okay.