My Happiness vs. Your Happiness

In this episode, we explore how to find happiness in our own lives while honouring the happiness of others. Remember that happiness is not finite, rather it can be owned by everyone in large bounty. (Please note, this is a podcast, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Happiness,

Peace,

Joy,

Just trying to make our lives better.

It's probably one of the main reasons we listen to this podcast.

And part of creating happiness in our lives is about change,

Adjusting to changes,

And making changes in our lives,

So that we find more peace and joy in our lives.

For example,

We may be in a job that we really don't like and we struggle with,

And we think about making changes,

And we work towards making those changes,

And then we implement them and make the change.

Perhaps taking a different job,

Perhaps going back to school,

Perhaps simplifying our lives so that we don't need to make all that money and can have more free time.

Or,

We may be in a marriage or a relationship that actually causes us more pain and joy,

And it isn't making our lives better,

So we decide to leave in order to improve our lives and be happier.

But in both these situations,

This may have an impact not just on our lives and making it better,

But it may have a negative impact on other people's lives.

For example,

If we have children,

How will they be affected by us leaving our spouse?

So finding happiness in our lives or creating happiness in our lives isn't always black and white.

It can be more complicated than that.

And we have to ask questions,

Questions about the choices we make and the impact these choices are going to have on our lives and people around us.

And in today's podcast,

That's what we're going to explore.

How do we find happiness and not necessarily create unhappiness in others?

Recently,

I received an email from one of our listeners,

And he asked some really good questions about this very question of happiness,

Ours versus others.

His name is Christian,

And he's from the United Kingdom.

And he writes,

Dear Dr.

Puff,

I have a question that I hope you can help me with.

One of the most important premises of all your advice is that life changes and that we need to adapt to those changes rather than fighting them.

I completely get it.

But how about situations when we are responsible for changes or have the possibility to make changes to our lives?

Some of these changes may have positive implications and some may have negative ones.

But in most cases,

It's a mixed bag with some positive and some negative outcomes.

How should we make those kinds of decisions so that the changes we introduce to our lives make us happier?

I am an academic and often I receive formal or informal offers to change jobs.

And I have learned from your podcast that I should not really develop attachments to any outcomes I may or may not be able to achieve through my work.

But what should I do when I need to weigh the pros and cons of any major decision?

Knowing that I can adapt to any course makes me more confident that there is no right or wrong decision in the absolute.

But when I am offered a job,

I need to say yes or no and I cannot get my head around how to do that based on the philosophy you advocate for.

One complication is that these life decisions that I am often faced with making can also affect the happiness of different members of my family.

I have a wife and two lovely kids and two elderly parents who live in a different country than I.

Different job opportunities will affect them differently.

My wife may be happier in a large city.

My kids may be happier in a small town.

My parents may be happier if I went back to the country where I was born.

And I cannot decide how to prioritize these different goals.

I want to make sure that they are happy just as I want myself to be happy but I realize I can't achieve all these goals at the same time.

How should I choose then?

Sincerely,

Kristin These are very good questions from Kristin,

Ones that we all have to think about as we navigate our life and try to improve it and find more happiness and peace in our lives.

How do we do that when our choices can affect other people?

These are complicated questions because there's layers to them.

Let me explain.

For example,

There are times when we are in relationships or situations where the situation is abusive to us.

There's nothing healthy in it.

Maybe you're in a relationship where someone is criticizing us,

Physically hurting us,

Or something of that sort.

So in these situations,

If possible,

We need to remove ourselves.

I say if possible because sometimes we're in prison or a place like that where a young child and we can't leave.

But we do our best then to practice the things we talk about as,

How do I adjust to this most horrible situation?

And there are times where we have done everything that we can,

There's nothing else we can do,

And then we just work towards living in the present moment and focusing on the things that are good in our lives.

These are extreme cases and sometimes we are in those extreme cases.

But mostly,

There's a lot of things we can do.

For example,

Let's say we're in an abusive relationship.

I've worked with many people over the years who are in abusive relationships and for whatever reason,

Whether we agree with it or not,

They don't want to leave.

So then what we come up with is a plan.

For example,

They're in a car with their partner and their partner starts to be abusive.

I've encouraged them to get out of the car,

Wherever they're at,

As soon as the car stops,

And get a taxi or nowadays an Uber and go to someone's house until that person calms down and then go back home.

Or if they need to,

They leave more permanently.

But they have things in place to separate themselves from the abuse.

And that's important because I think a lot of times there's many things we can do.

We can call the police,

We can set up boundaries,

We can walk away,

We can call them on it.

There's lots we can do when we're in an abusive situation.

And I think we have to have as much as possible zero tolerance for that.

Because I would argue,

Deeply argue,

That in those situations,

You're not taking away from the other person's happiness.

You're actually adding to it.

Because in life,

One of the worst things that we can do is hurt innocent people.

When we do that,

We have so much self-loathing that kicks in after the event occurs.

We know that indefinitely.

I've seen that so many times where there's so much guilt when we hurt other people.

Just think about your own life.

If you've ever hurt anyone,

I'm sure you can remember how much guilt there was in regards to that.

So,

Setting boundaries and not allowing them to continue to abuse us is a great thing to do.

It's helpful to them.

But mostly in life,

What we're going to deal with are the choices that we make that are going to have more subtle impacts on other people.

It's not that we're being abusive.

It's not that they're being abusive.

But the choices we make affect them.

They're not necessarily always for the good.

So,

How do we navigate these choices,

Particularly ones like Christian is facing?

How do we navigate choices where it can have a negative impact on other people?

I think one of the greatest tenets,

Philosophies,

Approaches to life that we can have that all religions espouse is the Golden Rule.

Treating others as we want to be treated.

And in some ways,

It really boils down to fairness.

We want to be fair towards others,

And we want to be fair towards ourselves.

Both.

Not either.

We have a tendency to do one or the other.

We have a tendency to be very selfish and not think about other people's feelings at all.

Or we have a tendency to be overly concerned about other people's feelings and not consider our own feelings at all and what's important to us.

And I think there needs to be a balance between the two of these in order for us to increase our level of happiness and also both increase or at least not decrease the level of happiness in other people.

Or sometimes there may be choices that we make that aren't to our benefit.

Then later there should be choices that we make that are to our benefit.

Again,

It's a give and take.

It's a fairness.

Fairness works so well in life.

It's probably what I spend a good part of my time when I work with people focusing on being fair.

We really don't like unfairness.

I mean,

I think a lot of times marriages end,

People leave companies,

And on and on it goes because of unfairness.

We like it when things seem fair.

Now sometimes in regards to fairness,

It is a black and white choice.

What I mean by this is,

Let's say for example,

We're going on a car trip.

And it's a long car trip.

And one of us has to drive.

And neither of us want to.

So the fairness would be that on the way there you drive and on the way back I'll drive.

It's fair.

But we both can't drive at the same time.

We have to take turns.

So fairness means dividing things up evenly.

So it's fair to both of us.

Or if we can't do that,

Then we take turns.

Those are good examples of fairness.

Here's another example of fairness that I think can be really helpful,

Particularly in regards to happiness.

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while,

You know that I advocate taking time for retreats,

Getting away,

Having time by ourselves,

Things that we do that we can really quiet ourselves,

Be at peace,

And allow that quiet time,

That retreat time to really heal us and bring us back to our state of happiness and equanimity.

But when we're in a relationship,

If we have a family,

If we have a spouse,

It's harder to do that.

So again,

We have a tendency to go extremes.

We do everything with the family,

Everything with our spouse,

And if we have any free time,

It's used to catch up on all those chores that are always waiting for us to do.

Or the other extreme would be someone who abandons their family and is done and walks away and you never see them again.

And clearly I do believe it's possible to do both,

To be there with our spouse,

To be there with our family,

And to have retreats.

It's time for that.

So what I advocate,

For example,

With couples that I work with,

Is I tell them,

Take turns.

Of course,

Go on family trips,

But sometimes go on couple trips and let someone watch the kids.

And sometimes each of you take your individual trips and the other person stays home with the kids.

Just make sure it's fair that if one person gets away,

The other person gets away.

And as long as it's fair,

We really do well with it.

And people like it and they feel a lot better.

It's one of the things I really like to teach couples that I work with.

It's hard for them to do because there's a sense of you just sacrifice,

Sacrifice for 20,

30 years,

And then you wait for retirement to start living.

And that's silly,

As you know,

We don't wait for happiness.

Happiness is here and now,

And we create it.

But we create it a lot better when we're fair.

I know sometimes it seems impossible,

But that's where we really have to question our belief systems.

Are they correct?

Are they true?

Do we need to be at every game that our kids have?

Or can we take turns?

One spouse goes one time,

The other goes another time.

I mean,

There's so many choices that we have.

I mean,

Think about work.

Do we need to be there all the time?

Do we need to be the first one to arrive and the last one to leave so that we are unfair to ourselves and don't have time to work out or go out in nature?

I mean,

We have to be fair to ourselves and we have to be fair to our employer.

So there's so many ways that we can find balance.

And when we're fair and we're reasonable,

Then life goes really well because we're being good to others,

We're loving them,

And we're being good to ourselves.

We're not letting people abuse us.

We're being fair to them and we're being fair to ourselves.

Now,

The great thing about what we teach here is we teach that we can be happy no matter what.

It's all about how we see it.

And when things are tough,

We can still be happy because there's something always beautiful to be with.

So the great thing is when it is our turn to perhaps give more and let the other person have a break,

It really isn't something that we necessarily struggle with.

We say,

Oh,

Good,

This is my time to work harder,

To give more because I want to give other people chances,

But I can enjoy them too.

I can have a lot of fun no matter what happens because life is a beautiful adventure.

And as long as I focus on the here and now and flow with things,

Things go better.

But we do need to remember life goes better when we're fair,

Fair to others,

And fair to ourselves.

There is a subtle aspect to this that we do need to be aware of.

In regards to fairness,

Sometimes it's fair over the big picture,

But right now it may be skewed in one direction.

For example,

When we're parents and raising young children,

It's probably going to be far more about giving to them than them giving to us.

I mean,

They give things to us,

But we're probably going to give a lot more to them.

However,

When we as parents get older,

It can go in the other direction where our kids give more to us.

For example,

My father is in his 80s and traveling for him just isn't really possible anymore,

So I go visit him and he doesn't come visit me.

Does that seem unfair?

No,

Because he's older and he did so much for me as a child,

I love giving back to him.

It's just part of life.

In the bigger picture,

Sometimes it can be skewed for a while,

But in the long run,

If we surround ourselves with loving people,

It really works out well.

But that's the other thing.

We also want to make sure that we are with people that value fairness,

That value our time and value their time,

And they feel it's important that both of us succeed and find happiness in life.

If it's all about the other person and they're very selfish,

We have to consider,

Is this friendship,

Is this love relationship necessarily good for me?

Or is it something I need to work on improving,

Like with our children,

We just need to work on improving it,

But with anyone else,

It's a choice.

So we have to decide,

Is this someone I want to spend my time with,

Or do I want to talk to them about it and say,

You know,

This isn't being fair,

We need to work on this,

And maybe they'll adjust.

But if they don't,

Then we have to make more decisions about,

Hmm,

Is this necessarily a healthy relationship for me,

Or do I need to perhaps change it,

Or maybe even end it.

They're tough decisions,

But when we look at the whole picture of fairness,

Loving others,

Loving ourselves,

We find that they aren't that hard to make anymore,

Because we realize,

As long as we're being fair to ourselves and others,

Life truly can be good.

And though we can't control other people's happiness,

Our own happiness we are responsible for.

So that's our focus,

That's what we spend our energy on,

As long as we're fair,

We're going to find it's not too hard to do that,

Particularly not worrying about other people's feelings,

Because we're fair,

We're reasonable,

But we also are fair towards ourselves,

And keep working towards being happier,

Implementing the things we learn here,

And improving our lives one day at a time,

One breath at a time,

And if we do that,

We will find that we can be happier,

And the people around us,

If they choose to be,

Can be happier too.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

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Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

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And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Fairness is a simple concept I will implement today. Thank you

Always so nice to listen to your positive podcasts