During commencement season I ponder what would I tell a graduating class about happiness. Therefore welcome to my 2013 commencement address. And if you comment by May 31, you’ll be entered in a drawing for a Society T-shirt.
When you’re in school, you believe happiness is right around the corner, that it’s a time when you don’t have to deal with classes, papers, exams, and shoe string budgets. Well today you’ve just achieved at least the first three of these happiness getters. If you’ve secured your post-degree job then you are on the way to the forth. Congratulations!
Enjoy the happiness this moment brings. After all, happiness is only a moment.
In the near future, you’ll be reminded that what we believe we need to be happy changes the moment we catch whatever happy carrot we were chasing. A lot of happiness is a result of the happy carrot chase, because that’s where we live our lives. Your future happiness carrots with be the next degree, a job, more money, a car, a house, stuff for the house, your perfect prince or princess, a baby, dreams for your baby, bigger and better stuff, and eventually retirement. The list will constantly change. You’ll have moments of happiness. But they will be fleeting, because trophies alone do not create a mostly happy life.
I asked myself, “What do I wish I’d know sooner about living a mostly happy life?” Here are the top three things that would have helped me be happy a little more often if I’d understood them earlier.
Relationships are the Key To Happiness
The happiest people have relationships. And the key to any good relationship is to understand its role in your life.
I believe we have 3 circles of relationships:
Foundation Relationships
This is the relatively small group of people with whom you have each other’s backs. You’d bail each other out of jail (though I’ve never needed this favor), you sit with each other during a complain fest, then give your honest opinions and you bring chicken soup when someone is sick. You know each other’s secrets, hopes and wishes. You know their best qualities and the ones that need improvement – and they know yours. You celebrate each other’s successes, laugh at the same things, and smile when you think of each other. Some are friends and some are family, and they are the people who keep you balanced. They’re relationships of mutual feelings reinforced by actions. Value these relationships and don’t take them for granted. They make the unhappy bearable, and the happy happier.
Network Relationships
This is the circle of people that most of the people you know are in including some of your family members. The bases of these relationships usually involves some type of an exchange – information, connections, family peace during the holidays, results, fun, or even loyalty and admiration. You may or may not like these people. They may be in your social networks, you may exchange holiday greetings or party invitations, and you may spend significant time together at lunches, happy hours or on golf courses. But despite the social niceties of these relationships, they are ultimately based on quid-pro-quo. For example, if you ask your favorite author a question on Twitter and they answer it, yes they were being nice. But they also wanted you to feel connected to them. Why? You’ll be more likely to buy their next book. And yes, sometimes, these relationships develop into foundation relationships over time. But usually, a network relationship is like an open door, where, someone is in your life for a while and then then leaves, and can even reappear. They are causal relationships with minimal expectations.
Mentor Relationships
Eventually you’ll meet someone who helps you for no other reason than they understand that helping someone else for nothing in exchange is probably the most fulfilling type of happiness. These people are old souls that help us become wiser and better. They don’t need a quid-pro-quo because they don’t need much from others. A mentor only asks that we share the knowledge when it’s our turn to mentor others. And while these are prized relationships, they aren’t peer to peer but, more like student to teacher.
Each of these relationships has its own unique purpose. But sometimes we get our feelings hurt when we mis-categorize them. Or we damage a foundation relationship because we take it for granted. Regardless of a relationship’s role, they are all keys to our happiness and need to be appreciated for their own unique value.
Bad Things Will Happen
Bad things will happen to everyone – to chronically cranky, happiness-challenged, mostly happy, and even persistently perky people. Your disposition only determines how you react to the unhappy event.
Some unhappy events are beyond our control – things like tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, terrorism, crimes, illness, accidents, death of loved ones, the actions of others or broken hearts. And this only scratches the surface of what’s beyond our control. There’s usually not a lot we can do to prevent these things, so we are left to coexist with their consequences. However, these events are often a catalysts that bring out the best in us. We unite to help a community or someone in need. We learn empathy and compassion.
Some bad things happen because we’re in a learning curve. Everyone has made and will make choices that in hindsight had consequences we didn’t plan. These experiences teach us about humility, about getting up after we fall, the art of apology, the grace of forgiveness and compassion.
When bad things happen, regardless of why, our relationships are what help us heal, grow and ultimately become better people. That is, if that’s how we choose to react to the experience.
Happiness Needs Action
It’s no one else’s job to make you happy. And happiness doesn’t show up if you just sit around doing nothing.
Happiness happens when we’ve done a good job or finished something – even if we weren’t happy while doing it. Happiness happens when we feel love for a person or a pet. Happiness happens when we’re passionate about a hobby, cause or experience. Happiness happens when we play, laugh and see the miracles in life. Happiness happens when we give, when we reflect, and when we are empathic towards others. Happiness happens when we look at our past and have nostalgic memories that make us smile.
To feel any of the above, you have to participate in life and not watch from the sidelines. You need to embrace new experiences and people. You need to appreciate traditions. You need to give and receive with grace. You need to laugh and have fun. And you also need to cry, feel sad, and even feel fear. In order for your soul to embrace happiness you’ll need to live fully and that includes feeling the anger, sadness and frustration that results from unhappy experiences.
You only get each second of each day once. That exact moment will never come back. It’s up to you to use your time wisely. After all time is one of the great equalizers. Everyone regardless of money, brains, or status has the exact same twenty-four hours a day. When you’re young it’s impossible to understand how quickly the next 20, 40 or 60 years will pass. You’re twenty something now, and in a blink you’ll be fifty something thinking you can’t believe how fast it went.
So ask yourself a simple question each day, “Did I create memories today that I’ll want to recall in the future?”
It’s actually pretty easy to be happy most of the time. Value your relationships and respect them for what they are, because they are one of the keys to happiness. When bad things happen, after the shock has passed, try to learn and become a better person as a result. Happiness requires participation – even if it’s as simple as recognizing all of the wonders that life holds or as active as having a bucket list so big that if you do something on it every day you realize that you’ll never have enough days to everything on it.
If you want to live a mostly happy life, you can.
Written by Pamela Gail
Pamela Gail Johnson founded the Society of Happy People in 1998.
The Society is grounded on Pamela’s four key Practical Happiness Principles:
Pamela identified 31 Types of Happiness that are on the SOHP App Happiness Counter to make it easier to recognize moments of happiness.
Pamela also plans and organizes the Society of Happy People's annual happiness celebrations:
She's also a speaker, trainer, and author.
A few of her personal smile starters include her monthly book club, yoga, traveling and meeting new happy people.
If I could go back to the commencement address I heard when I graduated in 1970, there is a lot I wish I would have heard. I wish I had heard that even though knowledge was a wonderful thing, I do not know all there is to know, education is an ongoing fact of life. I wish I had heard that it is inevitable to make mistakes, and that I will need to allow myself to be wrong sometimes. I wish I had heard that despite what I know is my career path set in stone now, that circumstances require flexibility and the acceptance that new dreams can be built from the foundations I have today…that change is not always a bad thing. But most of all, I wish someone had told me that among my love for family, loyalty to friends and joy in career, I needed to not only make ME a priority but ideally the first person on my list of priorities. If you do not value yourself, set your needs first and foremost…when you gain years, you will have regrets. Regrets are a horrible waste of productive mental energy that one does not need. Taking care of yourself NOW, nutritionally, psychologically, physically and spiritually will allow you the freedom to enjoy the results of those dreams you have when you are just entering society. When you are young you think you have the luxury of time. When you are old, you realize that was the dumbest thing you every thought. If you are good to yourself now, you will really like yourself later in life.
Thanks for sharing … I think we should all write a commencement address … it reminds us of what we’ve learned. You inspired me to do a challenge next May. Maybe we’ll make it a contest. Thanks…
I agree with all of the above. As I’ve gotten older, I realize that only I can bring true happiness to myself. Life is too short and we need to look at even the smallest things around us each day to find true beauty and happiness. Live each day like it’s your last, because we never know when it may be!
Tina thanks for the comment … it’s amazing the wisdom that comes with experience.
school was like a job. you had to do your best and got grades for it. Now you are in the real world and you have to do yor best and get paid for it.
Thanks Margaret … there’s a lot of wisdom in your words about the difference between work and school.
Full of wisdom and eloquently expressed! Thank you.
Vicki thanks for your comments … you’re too kind.
People used to say I looked stern and unhappy so I trained my mouth to turn up instead of down. It took practice and a different set of facial muscles. Smiling gave me a different perspective. I learned that every cloud has a silver lining and I smile often. Smiling makes me feel better and frequently gets a smile from someone in return. Now I actually look and feel like a happy person.
Good “speech”, Pamela!
Jasmine … thanks for your comments and I hope you keep smiling and finding the silver lining.
Sharing this with one of my psychotherapy clients.
Zoe … hope it helps your client. Thanks for the comment!
Sharing this with a psychotherapy client of mine…
When pursuing happiness, make sure you enjoy the chase. Happiness will then pursue you.
Good speech.
Um… what is commencement?
Susan … thanks for the comment. The commencement address are the speeches given to graduation classes.
Great commencement address! These 3 keys are important for anyone, young or old, to hear.
Carissa – thanks for the comments … and we could all learn more if we listened to more commencement address since they are usually about wisdom for all ages.
What a wonderful commencement address! I wish mine was as insightful when I graduated back in 1988!
How true that everything is about relationships. Very important points for those of all ages to keep in mind.
Lauryn, thanks for the feedback … yeah, relationships are definitely a happiness key!
Totally agree with thoughts, especially your last comment. I believe in the power of positive thinking because it’s undeniably the energy you exude AND the energy you receive from those around you that guides you in your words and actions resulting in the level of your own happiness. Thanks for posting.
Thanks Karen for your comments … our thoughts definitely lead the way to everything else.
I would say that I wished the speech at my own commencement would have been as good, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I wasn’t ready to “hear” it all back then, maybe because I had already made up my mind on what I wanted my future to be. I have learned an awful lot since graduating! And thankfully have never stopped learning…
Thanks Tammy. It’s true when we’re young we think we know everything so sometimes we don’t hear. Fortunately, you’ve chosen to keep learning. Enjoy!!!
Thank you for sharing such a personal and insightful writing! Make every day a GREAT day! 🙂
Thanks Colleen for your comments … I hope every day is great for you too!!!