In my last article, I talked about how your personal happiness may well not be what others might like, nor even approve of. In fact, this opens up an even more thorny problem, the idea of “happy for good reason” versus “happy for bad reason.”
Whilst you might agree with Marci Shimoff’s popularised message of “happy for no reason”, the fact is, that we each face life with our current personality, complete with our unique personal perspectives, motivations and values.
In other words, if you happen to like helping others, even if you overdo it, it’s where you are at right now. By contrast, if you happen to enjoy winning at all costs, even if sometimes you find yourself disliked, it is nevertheless where you are right now.
That’s not to say that we can’t evolve our personality; we can. But why would you? Well, I go along with the notion that we change when we have “had enough;” when things get too painful or our ways no longer deliver the happiness.they once did.
Of course, this does not guarantee change - most of us still won’t change even then – but it is the first requirement. Deep and influential thinkers and researchers such as Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi, Claire Graves and Ken Wilber all support this “model” of change.
But in the meantime, you are left with doing more of the same. Because here’s the thing; if things need to start going wrong in order to evolve to something better, then you had better crack on with doing what you already do, so that you have a chance of getting tired of it!
Of course, I would recommend always doing your best to figure out the consequences of your intended actions for all involved, and then asking yourself if you are happy with them… but even so, they are still unlikely to please everyone, and may even upset or displease some. This is a difficult and inescapable fact that is seldom recognised or discussed. In fact, there’s an argument here for making things worse in order for them to get to something far happier.
Whilst you might agree with Marci Shimoff’s popularised message of “happy for no reason”, the fact is, that we each face life with our current personality, complete with our unique personal perspectives, motivations and values.
In other words, if you happen to like helping others, even if you overdo it, it’s where you are at right now. By contrast, if you happen to enjoy winning at all costs, even if sometimes you find yourself disliked, it is nevertheless where you are right now.
That’s not to say that we can’t evolve our personality; we can. But why would you? Well, I go along with the notion that we change when we have “had enough;” when things get too painful or our ways no longer deliver the happiness.they once did.
Of course, this does not guarantee change - most of us still won’t change even then – but it is the first requirement. Deep and influential thinkers and researchers such as Mikhail Csikszentmihalyi, Claire Graves and Ken Wilber all support this “model” of change.
But in the meantime, you are left with doing more of the same. Because here’s the thing; if things need to start going wrong in order to evolve to something better, then you had better crack on with doing what you already do, so that you have a chance of getting tired of it!
Of course, I would recommend always doing your best to figure out the consequences of your intended actions for all involved, and then asking yourself if you are happy with them… but even so, they are still unlikely to please everyone, and may even upset or displease some. This is a difficult and inescapable fact that is seldom recognised or discussed. In fact, there’s an argument here for making things worse in order for them to get to something far happier.
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