Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.
I'm Dr.
Robert Puff.
Have you ever heard of William F.
Buckley Jr.
?
He was a profound logophile,
A man of immense vocabulary,
Sharp debate,
And serious political thought.
For 33 years,
He hosted Firing Line and interviewed thousands of the most influential people of his time.
And yet,
With his profound intellect,
He recognized that the ultimate secret of a joyful life wasn't found in adult sophistication or serious achievements.
It was found in the simple directive,
Don't grow up.
And here's what I believe he meant,
Which I completely agree with.
Adulthood,
With its obsession with status,
Productivity,
And seriousness,
Is often a trap.
True,
Deep wisdom is found in retaining the awe,
Curiosity,
And open-heartedness of a child.
So why do we grow up and often lose our happiness?
At the time of this recording,
I just last weekend watched a new biopic about Michael Jackson called Michael.
When you watch the movie,
You see how in his younger years,
He possessed a pure,
Unadulterated,
Childlike nature.
His immense creativity and joy flowed directly from that innocence and sense of play.
He looked at the world with absolute wonder.
But as he got older,
The adult world encroached.
The crushing weight of expectations,
Business,
Pressure,
And loss of a safe,
Simple environment made his life infinitely harder.
The truth is,
We all experience a version of this.
We start off as children painting outside the lines,
And the adult world slowly tells us to get serious,
Be practical,
And stop playing.
We trade our joy for a resume.
And many of us,
Like Michael,
Didn't have a perfect childhood.
His father was abusive.
And yet for a while,
He was able to maintain that childlike heart inside of him.
Take a moment,
Pause,
And see if you can remember what you were like before life encroached on you.
Of course,
We can't remain complete children our entire lives.
But why do we lose that childlike wonder and innocence?
You may be thinking,
But Dr.
Puff,
My rent has to be paid.
I have to go to work.
I have to work hard to support my family or make sure I have a place to sleep tonight.
Life is hard.
But did you know,
Besides William F.
Buckley,
Jr.
,
There's been other profound spiritual teachers that teach the same thing?
This isn't just an observation made by modern writers or artists.
It's the core teaching of the greatest spiritual masters.
You may have heard of or recall the moment in the Bible,
Matthew 18,
When the adult disciples were arguing about who's the greatest.
They were acting like typical adults obsessed with hierarchy and status.
So what did Jesus do with this pompous,
Egotistical behavior?
Jesus brings a child to them and says,
Truly I tell you,
Unless you change and become like little children,
You will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven,
Or profound inner peace,
Is entirely inaccessible to the stressed,
Ego-driven adult mind.
It is only accessible to the heart that is trusting,
Fully present,
And easily awed,
The heart of a child.
This concept that our greatest joy is found in looking at the world through the eyes of a child is something that I'm deeply passionate about and have truly spent my entire life pursuing because I've come to realize that is the answer.
It's the core teaching of my book,
Awakening Wonders.
If we truly want to be happy,
We have to chip away at the heavy,
Cynical layers of adulthood and reawaken that natural,
Joyful awe.
When I was in graduate school,
I began studying the works of Carl Jung.
He was one of the founding fathers of modern psychology.
He was very introspective and wanted to live a good life,
Not just help others.
And he realized as a child,
He had been passionate about building games with stones and mud.
So to rediscover that same spark,
He began a ritual of building a miniature village on the shores of Lake Zurich.
Initially,
Jung felt a sense of shame and silliness as a grown man and a renowned psychiatrist engaging in child's play.
However,
He forced himself to continue until he felt a surge of creative energy and release.
I remember after learning what he had done,
I went to the beach and spent the entire day building a sandcastle.
Life as an adult can be so hard sometimes,
Exhausting,
And we can lose that inner child that wants so desperately to participate in our world.
But we don't have to.
There are steps we can take to keep that inner child alive and awake inside of us.
Years ago,
I was an adjunct professor for one semester at Rosemeads Graduate School of Psychology.
I had about 20 doctoral students in the class.
The class was on how to heal from early childhood traumas.
Part of their assignment,
Which I asked them to do,
Is during the semester to periodically carry around with them a stuffed animal.
And not only carry it around,
But nurture it,
Take care of it,
Be attentive to its needs.
Can you imagine a bunch of PhD students walking around with a stuffed animal?
Because I asked them to bring their stuffed animal to the class every week.
As you can imagine,
Not all the students were very keen on this assignment,
But many of them were.
So what can we do to take actionable steps on how to refuse to grow up today?
We have to schedule useless awe.
Adults typically only do things if there's a productive outcome.
Children do things just to see what happens.
Take 15 minutes today and do something completely unproductive.
Watch a bug on the leaf.
Listen to a piece of beautiful music with your eyes closed or finger paint.
Starting to introduce moments like these into our lives can be magical and transformational.
I did a podcast years ago called Waking Up at Princeton,
And I described when I was at graduate school there,
I was so busy and productive,
Going,
Going,
Going.
But one spring day on a beautiful afternoon,
I went outside,
Lied down on the grass,
And looked up at the sky and the clouds and just watched.
It was so transformational.
I was in such a beautiful place,
And I had missed it.
But that moment changed my life,
And I said,
I'll never do that again.
I'll always make time to be present and to see with wonder.
Thankfully,
I kept that promise.
When I went on for my second master's and then my PhD in clinical psychology,
I always made space for times of wonder and always made room to be present.
The second thing we can do is ask more questions.
Adults pretend they know everything to protect their ego.
Children constantly ask why.
Adopt a posture of curiosity today.
Assume you have something to learn from everyone you meet.
When I was a child,
My mom used to tease me,
Robert,
Every time you ask a question,
You have another one waiting before I even answer the one you just asked.
And then thirdly,
Drop the heavy armor.
Notice when you're putting on your serious adult armor to look important or guarded.
Take a deep breath,
Soften your shoulders,
And give yourself permission to be just a vulnerable,
Joyful human being.
William F.
Buckley Jr.
Had an intellect to conquer the world,
But the wisdom to know that the world is best experienced as a child.
We really can release the heavy,
Cynical burden of adulthood no matter what we've been through or what we're going through right now.
No one and nothing can kill that wide-eyed wonder of the child inside of all of us.
Take the time to get to know that part of you again and let that child come out to experience the world so that we may all find happiness and joy each and every day of our lives.
Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.
Until next time,
Accept what is,
Love what is.
