Losing Happiness (Being Careful During Difficult Tmes)

Good habits take time and effort to develop, and bad habits can be created easily and quickly and are hard to stop. How do we fall prey to bad habits, and are there things we can do to avoid them? Come explore how to create a beautiful life.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

There's an aspect of life that I think surprises a lot of people.

And we often experience it through choices that we make.

What I'm talking about is all the effort and time we can take into developing a good habit or developing something good for us.

And how quickly those habits,

Those good things we have in place can change.

And we can develop bad habits that cause us a lot of stress,

Unhappiness,

And suffering.

Sometimes they occur when a crisis hits.

Something changes in our life.

And we adapt to that new change.

But not in good ways.

We lose our job and it takes us a while to find another job.

So we start drinking more.

And that drinking has consequences.

Or don't we all know people who have been in a long-term relationship that was going well,

That seemed happy,

And then it ends?

And our friend who seemed to be making such good choices all of a sudden changes and makes very poor choices.

Because of the change that happened in their life.

Or haven't we not seen a person maybe for six months or a year?

And then we run into them again and we realize their life has changed.

They don't look the same.

They don't seem the same.

And we can tell life has been hard on them.

There was a movie,

A comedy called Lost in America,

That had a very good description of this.

It's based on a couple who are working,

Working hard.

They don't have any children but they're married.

And he loses his job.

He gets fired.

And he's so frustrated with the corporate world.

He decides to sell everything that they have,

Liquidate his retirement,

Buy a motor home.

And their hope is to spend the rest of their lives exploring America and living the dream life.

Well,

The first place they visit is Las Vegas.

And they're both gambling and he decides to go to bed because he's tired.

But when he gets up in the morning he can't find his wife.

And he goes down to the casino floor and finds her and realizes that she had gambled away everything they owned in their bank.

And now they're broke.

The only thing they have is their motor home.

So years and years of building up their nest egg was lost in one night.

I'm using these examples to make a point.

The point is it can take years,

Sometimes decades,

To cultivate good habits.

Habits that create happiness,

Peace,

Physical well-being,

And overall joy in our lives.

And very quickly,

Through changing these habits and developing bad habits,

Our lives can go down a very different path.

And they can change quickly.

And usually what happens is some crisis hits.

Something happens in our personal world or in the world at large where things change.

And the things we had been doing,

Like going to the gym,

Meditating,

Taking time to watch sunsets,

Relaxing,

Developing our careers,

Things that are really good for us,

We stop doing.

And once we stop doing them,

It can be very hard to go back to them.

Because habits are habits.

But the thing of it is that bad habits,

Things that are destructive,

Are much easier to cultivate than good habits.

But why is that?

It basically boils down to immediate gratification.

For example,

I've been meditating now for over 30 years.

I love the effects of it.

It's incredibly peaceful when I meditate.

And it's something I look forward to every day.

But someone else could be having an incredibly horrible life.

Perhaps their finances are struggling.

Perhaps they're living on the street.

Perhaps their family has disowned them.

And they too want to feel good.

They want to feel at peace.

So they turn towards drugs.

And you know what?

Unfortunately,

Those drugs work.

They will create a little bit of that sense of euphoria,

Of that sense of peacefulness.

And so they turn towards them.

And they feel better.

But they come with consequences.

They come with karma.

And that's why we tend normally not to do them.

Another example would be going to the gym.

Going to the gym is something I look forward to.

And if you work out,

You know it's something very enjoyable.

But don't we all know people for various reasons that stop?

They're in great physical shape.

Perhaps they did a sport when they were younger.

And then they may perhaps dive into their career.

Or have children.

Or have a trauma in their life.

An injury.

Or a psychological trauma.

And they stop.

And then they get used to coming home and not working out.

Just sitting in front of the television.

Or being on their phone.

Spending hours being sedentary instead of being active.

And that activity has consequences.

And that activity is in many ways attractive.

Because it's easy to repeat things that work immediately.

Immediately coming home and sitting on a computer and playing video games is easy to do.

Or going to the gym and working out might be hard to do.

So we do that.

Because immediately it feels good.

But in the long run,

It's hard on us.

And it has consequences.

Or let's say we graduate from high school.

And we're ready to get out there and live our life.

We can go get a job.

We can make decent money.

And we can have what seems like a decent life at first.

And someone else may say,

No,

I'm going to delay that.

I'm going to wait and work on developing skills.

So that when I do finish learning my skills,

I'll make a lot more money.

I may even go into debt for that.

Because I believe that investment will in the long run make me a lot more money.

So that delayed gratification,

That investing in the future has a payoff.

It takes longer.

You don't get the immediate gratification.

I remember being a student for many years at university.

And I was a very poor student.

I didn't mind.

But I didn't have a lot of money to go out and eat out a lot.

I didn't have a lot of money to buy new things.

But it was a good life.

And I enjoyed it.

Because I knew in the long run it would create a better life.

And that's the thing to keep in mind.

We very easily can turn towards things that are easier.

It's easy to fall into bad habits.

And even if we have really good habits in place,

When life circumstances change,

We have to be vigilant.

Because that's when we make changes sometimes that aren't good for us.

And it can be very subtle.

Let's say we're a runner.

We like running every day.

We run,

Say,

Three miles a day in order to keep fit and healthy.

Well,

Then something happens.

We move.

We get a new job.

We get a promotion.

Or perhaps something happens where a project occurs.

And it keeps us very busy for a little while.

We think,

Well,

It's no big deal.

I'll just not run for a few days.

And what could happen?

And then a few days turn into a few weeks.

And a few weeks turn into a few months.

Now when we think about running,

It sounds horrible.

We don't want to get out there and run.

It will hurt.

It will be painful.

We'd rather just keep doing what we're doing.

And now we've cultivated a new habit.

But a new habit that isn't good for us.

Or let's say,

For example,

We get up every morning and we juice.

We have a salad for lunch.

And we take the time to make sure we're having really good meals.

And again,

Something happens.

Let's say we go through a divorce.

And it's just hard on us.

We're exhausted.

We have to meet with lawyers.

We have to find a new place to live.

We have to deal with custody.

And in the process we say,

Well,

I'm too busy right now.

I'll just run by the fast food place and get some food.

It's easier.

It's quicker.

And I'll just do that.

And then six months go by.

And that's a new habit.

We don't look the same.

We don't feel the same.

But it's easier.

But when we think about getting back into our good habits,

It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of effort.

So we don't do it.

Good habits take work to develop.

Bad habits are easy to develop.

And life,

When things happen that disrupt our life,

Have a way of getting us off our good habits and falling into bad habits.

Because they're like drugs.

They really do work immediately.

I mean,

When we're under stress,

Coming home and binge watching a television series can seem fun.

It can get our minds off our worries and our stressors.

But in the long run,

It's not very good for us.

Or if we're exhausted and worried about our grades and what's going to happen when we finish university,

It might be easier to come home and smoke pot every night just so we can get our minds off of it.

But now we're not working out anymore.

Now we're not meditating.

Now we're not spending time in nature.

And all the good habits that we had in place aren't there anymore.

And we're discovering that our life is going down a very different path.

And we don't like it.

But it's hard to go back to the good habits.

Because good habits take work.

They take effort.

They take discipline.

Bad habits are easy.

They're immediately rewarding.

And if you want to change them,

Initially it will be painful.

So we just don't do it.

I've shared this story before,

But it's an important story.

Over the years,

When I meet people that are older and their lives are going great,

I ask them,

How did you do it?

I once ran in a marathon with a guy that was 90.

I've gone backpacking with people in their 80s.

And I'll ask them,

How did you get here?

How did you get to this age in such amazing physical shape?

And they'll tell me,

They just did it their entire lives.

They didn't give up.

When there are setbacks,

They just kept going.

And that's the key.

That remembering good habits take work.

They take commitment.

They take discipline.

But they reward us in countless ways,

Which is why we do them.

But we have to be careful.

In many ways,

We have to be vigilant.

Because when life changes,

When life throws us things that make us deregulated,

That make us upset,

Like a divorce or an international crisis,

It brightens us.

And we can go into our cave where we stop doing our discipline of things that are good for our soul,

And we isolate.

We turn towards addictions.

We turn towards things that are easy,

But are bad for us.

They're easy in the sense that they create immediate gratification.

But they're bad for us because they're not feeding our souls.

They're not making our lives a beautiful adventure that we're loving.

When we're going to have a life that is good,

On all counts,

Psychologically,

Spiritually,

Physically,

That takes effort.

Effort that we have to put forth every day throughout our lives.

But when crisis is hit,

We have to be vigilant.

We have to be careful.

Because that's when we can go down the path of creating bad habits.

And bad habits are very easy to cultivate in all arenas of our life.

So when we realize that,

We commit to our habits that are good.

We do them no matter what.

We find ways of making sure that our habits are in place and that we do them regularly.

Because we want to have beautiful lives.

And we realize that when we give up on these habits,

Or even when we relinquish them a little bit,

It's easy to fall into bad habits.

I'm not suggesting that we never do things that aren't a little bit indulgent.

Like sometimes maybe we do watch a few shows in a row.

Sometimes maybe we do have a very rich dessert.

Sometimes maybe we do have a bottle of wine.

But I'm suggesting these are just little things that we do once in a while.

Mostly,

We do our very good habits.

That keep us healthy.

That keep us mentally and spiritually fit.

And physically doing well in life.

So that as life changes,

We change well.

And we find that with the impermanence of life,

We adjust and we keep making choices that take effort to take work.

But we then get the rewards of life.

So that when we wake up in the morning we can say,

I'm looking forward to this day.

And when we put our head down at the end of the day we can say,

I made good choices.

This was a good day.

Thank you.

So may we all be careful.

May we all realize that bad habits are very easy to cultivate.

And good habits take work.

They take discipline.

But when we cultivate them and we keep doing them,

We get rewarded with a beautiful life.

One day at a time.

One breath at a time.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Great reminder that the habits that serve us most require work and consistency. It is easy fall into the low effort of instant gratification. I appreciated the basic point that good habits are a daily choice.

Exactly what I was needed 🙌

As a 40+ year fitness devotee, now at 61, I can say it doesn’t get any easier as we age. However, that struggle makes the reward all the greater. Through all the other changes in my life, my fitness regimen has remained as a constant; it’s a moving meditation I do in conjunction with seated meditation and helps me refrain from too many bad habits. Thank you! 🙏🏼😊

So true. Bad habits form easily, good habits take effort. Thank you for the motivation boost

Very inspiring and a great reminder for us all! Thank you 😊

Outstanding. Hit the nail in the head!!

Thank you 🙏