Happiness Wherever We Are

In this podcast we explore how to find happiness wherever life takes us. Puff gives us insight into his own personal life experiences to provide us with motivation and insight into how to embrace life in it's fullest.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

When I turned 16 in high school,

Though I already had been working at side jobs like mowing people's lawns,

Shoveling snow,

Things like that,

Now that I was 16 I could get a real job.

And my first real job I got was at a restaurant called Hardee's.

It was a fast food restaurant,

Much like McDonald's.

And my job was cooking the French fries.

And I remember I had one focus.

I was going to be the best French fry cooker they had ever seen.

I was just going to do a really good job cooking those French fries.

So whenever it was slow,

I would just be wiping things down,

Cleaning things off.

But I was always ready to make sure those French fries were available to customers.

And my focus was really on just doing a really good job cooking those French fries.

Well,

To my surprise,

They were so impressed with what I was doing that they started promoting me.

And I don't remember how long it was.

I think in about a year,

I was assistant manager working at that restaurant as a full-time high school student.

And that was a lot of work.

So what I did was,

Because I had to go to school and work at this restaurant,

It was a lot of hours,

I started drinking sodas that had caffeine in them to keep me awake so that I wouldn't fall asleep because I didn't have a lot of time to sleep because it was just a lot of work.

But one morning when I was sleeping before I woke up,

All of a sudden,

I felt like someone stuck a knife in my stomach.

It was horrible.

I mean,

Literally,

It felt like a knife was stuck in my stomach.

So I went to the doctor and he started asking me questions.

He said,

What,

Do you drink coffee?

I said,

No.

Do you drink tea?

And I said,

No.

Then he said,

Well,

Are you under a lot of stress?

And I didn't feel I was under stress.

I was managing my grades fine and I really liked the job.

I didn't feel stress.

I was just busy.

And then he finally asked me,

What do you drink soda?

And I said,

Yep,

A lot of soda.

And he said,

Well,

You have an ulcer.

So I stopped drinking soda.

But I remember it took years for that ulcer to completely go away.

I didn't use medicine or anything.

I just let it naturally heal.

But it took a long time for that ulcer to heal.

And though it took a long time for that ulcer to heal,

It took even a longer time for me to learn to change my behavior and not push myself so hard in regards to work.

I've always had a very strong work ethic and it took a long time to find balance.

But I don't think I'm unique in that.

I want to read an email that I recently received from one of our listeners.

Her name is Ann and she's a hospice nurse.

Hi,

Dr.

Puff.

I've been listening to your podcast for some time and do everything in the power I think I possess to implement the ideas you talk about.

Except I'm a very control oriented and a career driven individual that has a lot of trouble even knowing where to begin.

I get so excited that I can identify with nearly everything you talk about except it stops there.

And you think being in the business of death would make it easier because I see it every day,

But it doesn't.

It's a career and that changes the game and the idea of how to approach the game.

Please help me focus on your message and understand how to implement the ideas you have that I so value.

Thank you,

Ann.

Though I definitely relate to Ann,

I know not all the listeners well.

We have different approaches to our work and our careers.

But even if it is in our career,

I do think other things,

Things that we focus on can become more important than our happiness.

So we get stuck.

We get stuck in whatever we're doing,

Fill in the blank.

It may not be being the best at our careers and making sure we do a really good job,

But it can be something and those things keep us from being happy.

So let's talk about what we can do to find happiness and whatever we're doing.

If those things are important to us.

Well,

The first thing we have to ask ourselves is why am I pushing myself so hard?

Why am I so attached to this certain outcome?

I think that's a very important question.

Like for me,

Why was I having to be the best French fry maker that had ever worked at that restaurant?

And I see it related to three different things.

The first one is just conditioning,

Just habits.

If we have a habit every day of making our bed,

When we go on vacation and stay at a hotel,

We may be uncomfortable not making our bed and letting the help that works there make our beds.

I've actually given people assignments of going on vacation and not making their beds.

And often they come back and say they just couldn't do it.

It was too hard.

We may laugh at that.

But if we have habits in place that are harmful for us or causing us harm,

Like I did drinking sodas every day to stay awake and keep myself alert,

Then we have to ask ourselves,

Hmm,

Is this habit productive?

Is it something that perhaps I need to change and really work towards changing?

And change can be hard.

It can take a lot of work to change.

And this leads to the next two things that can cause us suffering in regards to our response to life and work.

Are we doing it because if we didn't do it,

We feel uncomfortable,

But that uncomfortableness is actually getting us in trouble?

Or are we doing it because we want the approval of other people thinking if we do a really good job,

That people will think highly of us and then we'll be happy.

So there's a lot of ways of mine is tricky.

It tricks us into saying we need to do this or else.

So whether it's a habit,

Whether it's concerned about not doing it or the desire to do it and get something from it,

In all three of these instances,

It's about being uncomfortable if we create change.

If we start creating change,

We're going to be uncomfortable because one of those three things isn't going to be met.

So we have to ask ourselves,

What are we doing these things for at the core?

And this is what I learned a long time ago.

I did stop drinking so much soda,

But my need to achieve did not abate and I kept pushing that and I kept striving.

And sometimes I won and sometimes I didn't,

But I really pushed myself.

And with all the successes that I was having,

It wasn't making me happier.

And I kept questioning,

Well,

Why isn't this working?

I mean,

I'm graduating from Ivy league schools,

I'm top of my class,

I'm publishing and doing all these things and I'm really not happier.

What's going on here?

And when I failed or the threat of failure was there,

It was just overwhelming.

So I thought I need to make changes here because this is not working.

And I could tell it wasn't working for other people either.

The people that I admired that had achieved a lot weren't happy themselves either sometimes.

So then I started really looking into what seems to work,

What seems to matter.

And what I found was that external achievement in and of itself really doesn't make any difference at all.

It doesn't necessarily make us unhappy,

But it won't make us happy.

And same with failure.

Failure in and of itself won't make us unhappy,

But it won't make us happy.

It didn't seem to matter.

What seemed to matter was focusing on just being happy now.

But unfortunately,

Our minds are really tricky.

They keep holding out that golden spoon saying,

You know,

If he just reached this one level,

Everything's going to be great and it will be smooth sailing.

But we look around and we see the people that have reached what we're working towards.

We can see that they're not always happy themselves.

Sometimes they're quite unhappy.

So that can t be the solution.

And we can look at our own lives.

How many times have we reached goals,

Done things really well,

Doing great at work,

And we're still not happy.

So that doesn't seem to work.

But it's tricky because our minds keep telling us right around the corner,

If he just reached this one last thing,

Find our soulmate,

Whatever it is,

Then everything's going to be great.

But unfortunately,

Life changes.

Life is impermanent.

So even when we reach a goal,

Things change and something else kicks in to create discomfort.

So what happens is we just have this constant task of reaching for goals.

We have them,

We don't have them and we get them.

We feel like they're going to work and then they work for a little while and then they don't work and then we have to start all over again.

And it's just a cycle.

It's crazy.

So how about if we get off the cycle and say,

Hmm,

I get it.

Of course,

I have to work.

These are the things I do.

I may be conditioned to work hard.

Nothing wrong with that.

But the question we need to ask ourselves is what am I doing right now to find happiness in this present moment?

We have a tendency to want to possess,

Control,

Hold happiness.

And that's not how happiness works.

No matter what goals we achieve,

If we try to hold it,

It's still going to change.

It's like going to the beach and loving watching the waves come in at the ocean and getting a bucket and taking that bucket out to the wave,

Picking it up and bringing it home.

Guess what?

When we get home,

There'll be no waves anymore.

The waves are just part of the present moment.

So what we work towards is living well in the present moment for the sake of living well in the present moment.

So using the wave analogy,

It'd be like,

Okay,

I'm at the beach right now.

Beautiful waves.

When I go home,

What waves can I find at home?

When I'm at work,

What waves can I find at work?

There's just always something beautiful to be with.

And we spend a lot of times doing things throughout the day.

Work is a really big one.

So why not say,

Huh,

How do I find beauty in what I'm doing right now?

And instead of focusing on doing a good job,

Focus on being present and enjoying what we do.

Even if our work is hard,

Even if it's laborious,

Or even if we're just conditioned to work really hard and all the happiness techniques seem to go out the window,

We can say,

You know,

I spent a lot of time at work.

I'm going to work on making this work well.

If our conditioning is kicking us into hyper mode when we're at work,

Merely by being aware of that and saying,

You know,

This really isn't helpful.

This isn't productive.

I'm going to relax.

I'm going to do a good job.

But when the fears of failure kick in or the concern about success kicks in or just the habit of having to push myself kicks in,

I'm going to question all three of those and say,

No,

I'm just going to do my work,

Work towards enjoying it because anything can have something in it that is enjoyable.

And maybe right now I can't think of one thing about my work that is positive.

I'm still going to make it my goal to find things.

And what will happen is when we do work towards living in the present moment,

That be our goal,

Not the goal of future success,

But really happiness right now that will begin to unfold goals to work.

But the shift comes from goals that someday I'll get,

And then everything's going to be great because those don't work into the goal being at work.

When am I at work throughout the day?

I'm going to work on enjoying it.

I'm just going to relax,

Do my best.

I'm good at handling things when they go awry,

But mostly I'm going to just focus on doing a good job in a relaxed manner and work towards finding happiness and peace throughout the day.

If that becomes our focus,

That is what's going to unfold.

And what will begin to happen is as we shift our attention to the present moment,

To the now,

We'll discover there are so many things we've been missing out on because we've been so focused on the past or the future instead of on the now.

But what we'll discover,

Like I said,

Is,

Oh,

I didn't even know all these beautiful things about my work were present.

But now that I'm focused on them,

They make my life and my work so much more enjoyable.

When I come to work and I see Nancy,

The secretary,

Give me a big smile,

It makes my heart feel better.

I enjoy that.

When I go to lunch with Nick and we have some really good conversations,

I enjoy that.

As we begin to shift and see things differently,

What unfolds is a beautiful work environment that we start to enjoy now.

We don't know what the future is going to hold,

But right now we begin to see the unfolding in the present moment,

Lots of beautiful things that we now are giving our attention to.

And because they're happening in the present moment and because we become very good at focusing in on the present moment,

Then whatever happens in the future,

Again,

We just get really good at being at work in our zone,

Watching the waves that are before us.

Metaphorically,

The waves that are always there.

There's always some ocean wave in our life and we give our attention to that.

Then what unfolds is a beautiful career,

A beautiful life.

It's nothing the grass,

But day by day,

Week by week,

Month by month,

Year by year doing this culminates in a really great career and life.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Besides creating this podcast,

There are a variety of other things that I do.

If you'd like to keep abreast of these activities and perhaps someday we may be able to meet in person,

Just go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

You can subscribe to my newsletter and if you do,

You'll be emailed a free PDF copy of my meditation book called Reflections on Meditation.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Always so good 🙏

Absolutely love your podcasts. Enlightening and encouraging. Thank you

Loved it. Great way to help break down how to be happier in your life.

I needed to hear this today It’s all about living in the moment. 🙏🏾🙂

Such a great talk. I'm lost for words.
Great job.

Thank you Dr Puff for these happiness podcast. I struggle with depression some days but your podcast seem to lesson the days it’s worse. Look forward to the next one!

Enjoy your podcasts. I always get some new piece of advice that I try to incorporate into my life. Change is not easy & your advice keeps me aware of doing things that are good for me personally. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Great message. External achievements does not guarantee happiness. I have lived this sentence.