Perspectives on Happiness

In this podcast we explore how our perspective effects the amount of peace or suffering we experience in life.

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert puff.

Unhappiness.

Why do we get so unhappy sometimes?

Our alarm may go off in the morning and we may think,

I don't want to get up.

I don't want to go through this day.

Or we can be driving to work and think,

Why do I keep doing this?

It can seem so pointless.

Or we can be in an argument with our loved one.

It can really feel like the world is coming to an end,

At least our world is.

Yet at the same time,

When we talk with a friend or a colleague and we hear about some tragedy that they're going through,

We may be sympathetic,

But it probably won't ruin our day.

We probably will still be as happy as we were prior to hearing about their story.

Or let's say we look into the news and we discover there's some natural disaster happening in a far distant part of the world.

We may be sympathetic.

We may even say a prayer,

But again,

It probably won't ruin our day.

Or I don't know if you remember being a teenager.

Maybe you are right now.

Or maybe you have a teenager.

I myself have two of them.

And sometimes they can come home with some pretty intense stories about ways that they're upset.

And when we look at it from our perspective,

It doesn't seem that bad,

Though they can be quite distraught about it.

And with these friends and families,

We can sometimes give some really cogent,

Meaningful advice for them so they can be calm and not be so upset about what's going on in their life.

Because we have a different perspective than they do.

Their perspective is causing them to suffer.

And for us,

Because we see it differently,

We see it from the outside.

We don't suffer and we can help them.

So when it boils down to being happy or unhappy,

It's definitely based upon our perspective and what's happening to us right now.

And then what do we do about that?

I mean,

From our perspective at the time,

It can be quite intense.

But when we step back and look at it from perhaps a different perspective,

We can realize that sometimes what we're getting upset about is pretty silly.

Let me use my own example.

Every Monday through Friday,

When I'm not traveling for business or for pleasure,

I go to an eight o'clock yoga class.

It's not far from my house,

But I do take the freeway to get there.

It takes me about seven minutes,

Perhaps.

It's only two exits from my house.

But the exit I take is the exact same exit that goes to the local high school where I live.

And this exit has two lanes,

One for the high school,

Which turns left and one for my yoga studio,

Which turns right.

Well,

At eight o'clock,

That's when the local high school is starting.

So that lane can get quite long.

Now the lane that turns right to my yoga studio,

There's almost no one in it because no one's turning that way.

But unfortunately,

Probably every other day,

There's someone that's going to the high school that goes into my lane,

Goes all the way down to the bottom.

And then I have to wait until they can find an opening to cut back in over to the high school.

I typically leave early for my yoga class and I've already taken my kids to school because they start earlier than the eight o'clock time.

So I'm not in any rush.

I can get there in ample time.

But then,

As I said,

Every day or every other day,

I have to wait for someone to pull over even though they know they're not supposed to be in that lane.

And it can be a little annoying.

Sometimes it can be quite annoying because it happens so often.

So at the time,

I am annoyed,

But I try to do something without annoyance because I don't want this other driver to affect my day in a negative way.

So I have things in place,

Which I'm hoping we can all use in order to have a good day,

Even when I have to deal with these annoyances.

And I know you as a listener might be going through something way worse than this.

There are many things we struggle with that are way bigger than waiting an extra 30 seconds to a minute to get to my yoga class.

Lots worse than that.

But perspective wise,

They're all the same.

It's all how we see them.

We can truly be annoyed,

Upset,

Angry,

Depressed,

Worried,

Fearful based upon how we see things.

And if we're able to change that perspective,

Guess what?

Our feelings change.

So I'm going to talk about a couple of simple things that I do and then today really delve into the deep thing that we can do when we too are struggling to find our happiness.

The first thing I try to do is give that other driver the benefit of the doubt.

It wasn't too long ago that I was going somewhere and I was using my phone app to help get me there.

Well,

It had me get off the freeway because the freeway was really putrid that day.

And as I got off,

It told me to turn left,

But not right away.

So when I got to the point where I was supposed to turn left,

There was a very long line and I had missed it.

Now I could cut in or I could have gone straight.

But at the time I was driving and I'd had no idea where I was.

So I decided just to cut in.

It probably wasn't the best choice,

But at the time I was already lost.

The traffic was hoarded and I was running behind schedule.

So I cut in.

Well,

As I was waiting for an opening to occur,

I wasn't blocking traffic going straight,

But I was cutting in.

Well,

When I finally cut in and there was an opening,

The guy who had been waiting in line was not very happy.

And he came within probably half an inch of hitting my car because I had cut in.

So the takeaway lesson for me is sometimes,

Yes,

People cut in,

But they're not always doing it because they're trying to be rude.

They could be cutting in for lots of reasons that I don't know.

And it's not for me to always figure it out.

I don't have to assume that people are doing it just because they can.

But if I assume they're doing it for a reason and perhaps a good one,

What it does,

It allows me from my perspective not to be so upset and just wait patiently.

And today's lesson is about perspective,

A perspective on how to find happiness.

Because if we assume that the world is bad,

That it's a dangerous place and we need to be careful,

Guess what?

We're right.

That's how we're going to experience it.

Wouldn't it be better to develop a perspective where the world is in pain,

But not necessarily there to hurt us?

It isn't necessarily there to cause us evil.

It may be suffering and it may be sharing its suffering with us,

But it isn't there to necessarily hurt us.

We do need to protect ourselves from people that want to hurt us,

But their harm often comes from their own pain.

Now you may be thinking,

Dr.

Puff,

I think you're really wrong.

But whether I'm right or wrong,

My perspective gives me equanimity.

It gives me peace because now I'm not fighting with the world.

Someone who has more of a conspiratorial thesis about life will find conspiracy theories out there all over the place.

There's ample evidence that they can find to support it.

There's also ample evidence to support that the world is still flat,

But most of us don't believe that anymore.

So the point is,

Our perspective matters.

I could spend many episodes arguing that people hurt us because of their own pain and they're not really trying to hurt us because they're evil.

They're hurting us because they're in pain.

Of course it's wrong what they do and we need to set boundaries.

But when we discover that,

When we understand it from that perspective,

Whether you agree with me or not,

It just softens us.

It softens the way we see the world.

If we fight the world and see it as a dangerous place where we need to have our guard up or a place that's going to cause us suffering,

Then guess what?

We're right.

If we see the world as a beautiful place where we can have truly astounding lives,

Then guess what?

If we believe that,

That's what we're going to find.

Now,

Right now,

You may want to scream at me through the podcast and say,

Dr.

Buff,

You're utterly crazy.

You don't get it.

Right now I'm diagnosed with cancer.

You don't get it.

I'm going through a divorce right now.

You don't get it.

I just lost my job and may lose my home.

I do get it.

And if we fight those things,

We are going to suffer.

And I know they're not fun when we go through them.

I get that too.

But our perspective is one that's going to shape how do we deal with these things when they happen.

If we want to fight them,

We can.

If we want to be miserable,

We can.

But there are people going through exactly what you may be going through right now that are handling it really well.

They aren't fighting it.

They're not even upset by it.

They might even find pleasure in it.

And let me use an example to support this.

It's an intense example,

But it's a real example where I knew these people.

Well,

This lady had two young kids and a husband.

She was very happily married and she was diagnosed with cancer.

And they went through all these different treatments to get her better,

But nothing worked.

Nothing.

And towards the end of her life,

Even though she was in pain,

She began to have what we could call visions and she began to see things.

And the things that she saw and the things that she learned,

Whether we think she's crazy or not,

For her were beautiful.

And she was able to whisper just before she died.

And I know this may sound hard to understand,

But she was able to whisper that she was glad that she had the cancer,

That she was ready to go onto the next big adventure.

Now again,

There's lots we can say about that,

But that was her perspective.

So whatever we're going through,

Changing our perspective,

If we're suffering,

Will make all the difference.

So we can ask ourselves,

Well,

Dr.

Puff,

What can I do when I'm just overwhelmed with life to help change my perspective?

And I want to conclude this episode with something that I have used most of my life and has gotten me through some difficult times.

And I'm hopeful that it may help you too,

Because it does help me see things from a different perspective.

And when the light seems not quite as bright in life,

It can definitely bring forth a lot more light.

And it has to do with perspective.

When I was a kid,

My father and I used to go outdoors a lot.

We'd be camping in the wilderness.

My sister and my mom would already be in bed,

But the two of us would be spending hours out there just looking up at the stars.

He'd talk about what little he knew,

Because though we had a college degree,

He didn't have any advanced training in astronomy.

But I do remember the wonder of looking up at the stars and seeing how vast it was in comparison to my father and I at that time.

And I've never lost my love for astronomy and the cosmos.

When I finished up my first college degree at the university,

I almost decided to apply for my doctorate in astrophysics,

But instead I went into clinical psychology.

Then when I finished my PhD in clinical psychology,

My love for astronomy had not waned and I actually applied to a physics program where I was going to specialize in theoretical physics and got accepted.

But at the last minute I decided it wasn't time to do that.

But over the years I've kept up my interest in it.

And though I'm definitely not trained to be a theoretical physicist or a cosmologist,

I love thinking about the cosmos,

Sitting outside,

Looking up at the stars and seeing my place in the universe.

What it does,

That perspective allows me to be at peace.

Because it's not so much that I've learned things,

It's more that I'm able to just be,

To be still in the cosmos,

In our universe and see my place in it.

And by seeing my place in perspective to everything else,

It quiets my mind,

It stills my heart and I find peace,

Deep peace in that contemplation of the universe.

And the universe is big,

Really big.

You probably know that,

I've heard that.

But it's so big that it allows me and perhaps you going forward to just be calm.

Because when I understand my place in the universe,

Which is so small,

Then the struggles that my mind can create become small too.

Because in the perspective of time and from the perspective of space,

My say if I live 80 years of existence is very small.

For example,

Did you know that the universe is about 13.

7 or 13.

8 billion years old?

I mean,

In comparison to my 80 years,

That's a really long time.

And did you know that our galaxy has over 100 billion stars in it,

Just our Milky Way galaxy that we can see at night on a dark night?

Or did you know they now think there are 100 billion other galaxies out there with 100 billion stars in each one of them?

And in total,

Like our sun with planets going around it,

Astronomers now estimate there are a sextillion,

That's a sextillion number of other stars in our universe.

That's 10 followed by 21 zeros.

That's a lot.

I mean,

Our planet has about 7 billion people on it.

That's 7 followed by 9 zeros.

That's a lot.

We can kind of grasp it,

Particularly if we travel a bit.

Now try to imagine,

Which we won't be able to,

1 followed by 21 zeros.

I mean,

We just can't do it.

It's just too many.

But that's how many stars there are when we go outside at night and look up.

That's how many are out there,

Just with us,

Living this universe,

This time with us right now.

It's amazing.

And if we take time to look at the universe and life from this perspective,

I don't know about you,

But what it does to me is it just calms me.

It helps me to be at peace,

A peace that really is beyond understanding.

So as you know,

I like to be really pragmatic about happiness on this podcast.

So here's what we can do this week going forward.

There are probably going to be some bumps in our life this week.

Some of us may be going through some really big ones and some of us may be going through some like waiting in line to go to the yoga class ones,

But whatever that bump is,

When it comes,

Just pause and think about that term sextillion.

That's one followed by 21 zeros and say,

Okay,

And then look up if you're able to look up at the sky and say,

As I look up,

Just contemplate in my heart,

How big this universe is and my little problem or big problem,

Whatever it is,

Is not very big in comparison to the universe.

It's actually quite small.

I'm not going to discount it.

I'm just going to say,

Do I need to create such a story about this given that my little mind and my little heart can be aware of this vast universe that we live in at the same time that I'm struggling with fill in the blank.

And given that just perhaps,

Perhaps from this perspective,

I can find peace knowing that at some level,

The universe is well.

All is well.

All is going to be well and all will be well because from the perspective of the universe,

Our little problems are quite tiny.

We're not discounting them.

We're just saying,

Do we need to create a story about them or do we instead need to say,

It's okay.

All is well because when we steep ourselves in the universe and our place in the universe,

What we'll find is our hearts get quiet,

Very quiet.

And in that silence,

There are no problems.

In that silence,

Life just is.

This changing of my perspective by seeing my place in the universe has been an incredibly effective tool in my life.

My hope is that it will help you too.

As we go through our struggles,

It's sometimes really nice to have something to lean on and know that we are going to be okay.

Try this this week and see too,

If in the contemplation of the universe,

Our hearts find peace.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

If you are wanting to learn more about the world of happiness,

Please go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

And if you are enjoying these podcasts,

The views are awesome.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Such insightful words. I really enjoyed this, so many wonderful takeaways. Thank you! Namaste 🙏🏼✨🧘🏼‍♀️☮️

Great suggestions and inspirational comments. Thank you.

Thank you, really great podcast! I like the way you think.

I love Dr. Puff. He is like listening to Mr Rodgers with a doctorate in psychology. I love his perspectives. Accept what is. Love what is.

Thank you. Difficult few days and this put me back on the right path ❤️

Excellent points, very well done!! Thank you!!

Thank you. That was delightful and so true.

Nice perspective. Thank you.

A great message - thank you for this!

Great mindset to be in