Beyond Happiness: Mastering The Art Of Change

In a world obsessed with finding lasting happiness, this podcast takes a different path. Instead of chasing an elusive perfect state, we explore the art of adaptability and resilience. Life is full of ups and downs, unexpected twists and turns. Rather than seeking a constant high, we delve into the skills that allow us to navigate these challenges with grace and strength.

Join us as we unpack the tools and strategies that help us thrive amidst life's imperfections. We'll discuss how to build mental fortitude, embrace change, and find meaning in the journey, not just the destination. This isn't about denying happiness; it's about reframing it. It's about acknowledging that true fulfillment comes from learning to adapt and grow, not from seeking a fleeting emotion.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast,

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

There's a lot of things that cause us to be unhappy,

But perhaps one of the most important things that get in the way of us having a good life is the fact that we don't always have a good life.

Well,

First off,

Why would we even think that life needs to be perfect for us to be happy,

Or that we can have a perfectly happy life?

Our culture really reinforces this concept.

Think of all the books and movies that we've experienced,

That though there are struggles throughout the book or the movie,

In the end,

Everything turns out well.

One of my favorite series of all time,

Which I've read several times,

Is Harry Potter.

You've probably read it yourself or at least seen the movies.

But when the series ends,

You get a sense that all is well in the end,

That it turns out well,

That yes,

There's sadness and tragedy throughout the book,

But in the end,

Harry gets to marry the love of his life,

Ginny Weasley,

And things seem to just work out in the end.

They live happily ever after.

Or did you ever see the movie,

It's a Wonderful Life?

And though George Bailey has to go through some very difficult trials and tribulations,

In the end,

He finds out the true meaning of life,

Which is his love of his family and the people that care for him,

And he lives happily ever after.

But if you study things like this,

Read books,

Watch movies about these blockbusters where everything ends up in the end to be well and people live happily ever after,

If they decide to make a sequel,

There's going to be problems again,

A lot of problems,

Even with the couple that presumably lived happily ever after.

Or speaking in perhaps today's more common parlance,

What about social media?

Don't we all know people that perhaps we even follow,

That life seemed just magnificent or wonderful,

But when something goes awry in their life,

Doesn't the media or social media jump all over it and attack them and say they're terrible and they're awful?

We all know stories like this.

It seems like we should live happily ever after,

But we don't.

So what's going on here?

Well,

The biggest part of it all is the illusion of perfect happiness.

It really doesn't exist.

As we live our lives and things for a while are going well,

With time,

They're going to stop going well.

Things are going to start changing,

And with that change comes problems.

With these problems,

Whatever state of happiness we're at,

It may diminish,

But at this point,

It's the real crux of our lives because we have to decide one of two things.

We have to decide that life is hard,

It sucks,

And then we die,

And we might as well just seek pleasures,

Gratifications,

And find ways to make the immediate situation comfortable,

Or we keep trying to improve our lives and adapt to the changes that we're facing.

Because life changes and there's many challenges that we have to face in life,

What's going to happen is at points in our lives,

We're going to need to make decisions.

And I know this may be a little simplistic,

But it really boils down to two choices.

Are we going to give up,

Throw in the towel,

And stop trying?

Or are we going to genuinely try to find our happiness even amidst the changes that we're facing right now?

Think of someone that you know,

That perhaps you even loved,

That went through a very difficult time.

Maybe they went through a divorce.

Maybe they had health problems.

Maybe they lost their job.

And what they did is they gave up.

Perhaps they turned towards booze.

Perhaps they just stayed home and watched television all day long.

But we know people like this because what happens is they decide that life is just too hard and they give up.

They find something to numb themselves from the pain of life and they give up.

Lots and lots of people do this.

You right now,

Listening to this podcast,

May have decided to do that because life is just hard.

I was told if I was a good person and if I worked hard,

I would live happily ever after.

And look,

Dr.

Puff,

It isn't true.

So do we give up?

In many ways,

It's easy to give up.

That's why I think so many people do it.

It's hard to keep trying amidst the constant struggles of life.

It just gets exhausting sometimes and we want to throw in the towel and say,

I give up.

Or perhaps,

Just maybe,

We can say,

Okay,

I know my life's been hard,

But I'm not going to give up.

I'm going to keep working on finding ways to make my life work now.

Even though it didn't turn out the way I thought it would.

Even though perhaps some people really hurt me or perhaps I've made some terrible mistakes along the way.

But the truth of it is,

We can always,

Always go back to not giving up,

To trying again.

Or sadly,

We can just give up.

It is a choice,

But it's really a choice that we make every day.

When we wake up in the morning,

We decide how is this day going to go.

For people that give up today,

They say,

It doesn't matter.

I'm sick and tired of trying.

I'm not going to try today.

I'm going to just make myself comfortable and do that because life sucks.

And then they do that.

But another person wakes up and says,

You know,

Life has been hard and now I have to adjust to these changes.

I'm going to do that.

And then this day,

They work on making the adjustments to find their sweet spot.

That sweet spot that doesn't guarantee us happiness for the rest of our lives,

But instead improves our odds of having a better day today.

When we don't give up,

There's hope.

When we give up,

There isn't hope.

So let's spend the remainder of this podcast talking about how not to give up and how to improve our lives.

Even though we reach a point where all is good and going well,

And then it changes again.

Because the cycle of life is change.

And when we learn how to adapt to that change and live well with that change,

We'll find that though happiness may not be always at our doorstep,

It is very close by.

And all we have to do is walk outside and find it.

So the very first thing we have to do is completely and totally letting go the belief that sometime,

At some point in our lives,

We're going to live happily ever after.

This thought,

This belief will cause us more suffering than almost anything imaginable.

Because when we believe it,

And life says that isn't true,

Then we can so easily just give up on life.

But instead,

We begin to embrace the impermanence of life,

The changes that come through just being a human being.

If we live,

There's going to be changes.

And if things are going a certain way,

Well,

A day later,

A month,

A year later,

They may not be.

There's always things that can change our current situation.

When it's bad,

It can get better.

When it's good,

It can get worse.

Things change.

The impermanence of life is one of the main hallmarks of being human.

Life changes.

Even if we retire and we have lots of money in the bank with ample free time,

At some point,

Our health is going to change and we probably won't be able to travel or do the things that we used to do.

But that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

It's just part of life.

What I'm going to share next may surprise you,

And I don't think a lot of people talk about it because I think sometimes they're a little embarrassed to even talk about it.

I work with a lot of couples and sometimes couples get divorced and I work with them after they get divorced.

And of course,

There's a lot of difficulty with being divorced.

You may have to live on less income.

You have to split your time with your kids.

There's a lot that goes with it that seems negative.

But what may surprise you is a lot of individuals that after they get divorced,

Share with me one of the pluses is now they actually get every other weekend free or every other week free,

Which they didn't have before.

And it opens up a lot of opportunities for doing things that they,

In many ways,

Were putting their life on hold for decades as they raised their kids.

And now they don't have to.

I mean,

We don't want to get divorced,

Of course,

So we have every other weekend free,

But there's always something good that can come out of something bad.

Maybe not in the sense that something good happened,

Like if we lose a child to death.

Nothing good comes of that.

But think about the organization MADD,

Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

I mean,

That organization has saved thousands and thousands of lives,

If not countless numbers of lives,

Because their organization has really worked on helping implement tough laws against drunk drivers,

Which I think persuades or dissuades people from drinking and driving.

And I really believe they've helped so many people from their tragedy,

And it's a good thing.

So even when bad things happen,

We can make something good of it,

Anything.

We're incredibly resilient,

But you may be thinking,

But Dr.

Poff,

This is hard.

You don't realize what I'm going through.

It's so challenging.

It's just easier for me to come home and numb myself.

I don't like life.

So let me make it a little easier to overcome our challenges.

And the biggest way to do that is,

Is to do it one day at a time.

That's really the secret ingredient of having a happy life,

Because when we think about our future and goals,

Which are both good to do,

But what can happen is it can truly overwhelm us.

I mean,

If right now our lives are not going well,

Thinking about living happily even tomorrow would seem like a pipe dream instead of a realistic achievement.

So what we do is we say,

Okay,

What can I do when I wake up tomorrow and maybe write them down that would make my life a little bit better?

And then we do those things that day,

Not a lot,

But enough to make it a little bit better because we're going to do something.

But if we focus on what can I do tomorrow,

Not,

Am I going to be one of the happiest people that I've met?

Not everything's going to be fine.

Not I'm going to live happily ever after,

But instead,

What can I do tomorrow?

That really is perhaps the pivotal secret of a happy life.

Living one day at a time well,

Because we can control one day.

We can't control the future,

But we can control today.

So for example,

Let's say,

Because of the choices that have happened to us and our response to them,

Now we're 200 pounds overweight,

To go off and run a marathon would seem incredibly impossible.

I mean,

It wouldn't happen.

We could wake up in the morning and say,

I'm going to make it my goal today to walk around the block five times and I'll take a break when I get tired,

But I'm going to really fit in five walks around the block and also drink more water throughout the day so I'm not eating as much.

And then we accomplish that and we'll probably feel in the short term and in the long term a little bit better.

Yeah,

We'll be sore,

But it will be a good sore.

And then when we wake up the next day,

We say,

Okay,

What are things I could do today to make my life a little bit better?

And then we work on them.

But it's really about kindness,

Kindness towards ourselves,

Kindness towards stop judging ourselves for things we've done or things that have been done to us.

And also kindness in the sense that we stop comparing ourselves to other people.

Because the truth is,

We don't really know how other people's lives are going.

We only know our lives when we're only in control of our lives.

So that's what we put our energy towards and that's what we focus on.

But when we do this,

When we say,

Okay,

I'm not going to give up,

I'm going to work towards having a happy life one day at a time.

Then what we find is that we can control,

We can't control the future.

We can't control the changes that come our way.

But what we can do is respond in ways that lead us to having happy moments throughout the day instead of giving up and throwing in the towel.

That's a path of unhappiness.

That's a path of suffering.

We don't have to suffer,

But every day we have to make a choice that I'm going to do things to make my life better.

And then we do those things that day.

It's so much easier when we just focus on today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

We may have goals in the long run,

But mostly we focus on making today a good day by making improvements that make our lives better.

Not numbing ourselves because that can work too.

But instead doing things that we know are moving us in the direction of creating happiness just because we're alive.

Not because we're turning towards something to make us feel good,

But we're feeling good because life is beautiful.

But in conclusion,

It's a lot easier to do this when we let go of the belief that we need to live happily ever after.

What we do need to do is live happy one day at a time.

And when the changes of life come,

We adjust.

We adapt to these changes.

We're capable of that.

We can do that as long as you don't get overwhelmed.

And we won't be overwhelmed if we tackle things one day at a time.

Sometimes one hour at a time.

Sometimes one breath at a time.

But I believe no matter what's happening to us or has happened to us,

Right now we can find pockets of happiness,

Pockets of joy.

And with time,

No matter what we're going through,

Trust that we have the gifts,

That we have the ability to adjust to any changes that life throws our way.

And that we find that life,

When we live it one day at a time,

We find that we are having a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

This makes such sense to me. We so often look at happiness as a place we’ll get to, a place that’s held out as the ultimate goal, rather than seeking happiness a day at a time.

🩵

That was lovely 🥲

One day at a time…so true. Change is inevitable! Thank you for the reminder!