Do You Want to Be Very Happy?

This I got sev­eral weeks back via an email. I think it is worth read­ing. I’ve fea­tured Bo Sanchez arti­cles in my blog before, and this is another great read.

Do You Want To Be Very Happy?

Let me tell you a crazy story.

One morn­ing, a woman was sad when she faced the mir­ror. She dis­cov­ered she only had 3 strands of hair on her head. Sud­denly, she smiled. “Today,” she said, “I’ll braid my hair!” And after doing so, she walked out of her home and had fun, fun, fun.

The next morn­ing, the woman woke up and felt sad as she saw the mir­ror. She dis­cov­ered she only had 2 strands of hair. Sud­denly, she smiled. “Today,” she said, “I’ll part my hair in the mid­dle.” After she did that, she walked out of her home and had fun, fun, fun.

The next morn­ing, the woman woke up and felt sad as she saw the mir­ror. She dis­cov­ered she only had 1 strand of hair left. Sud­denly, she smiled. “Today,” she said, “I’ll wear my hair in a pony­tail.” After she did that, she walked out of her home and had fun, fun, fun.

The next morn­ing, the woman woke up and felt sad as she saw the mir­ror. She dis­cov­ered she had zero hair left. Sud­denly, she smiled. “Yeepee!” she shouted in glee, “I don’t have to do my hair today!” Imme­di­ately, she walked out of her home and had fun, fun, fun.

Do you want to be happy?

Here’s how…

The Dif­fer­ence Between Plea­sure and Happiness

A thick wad of P1000 bills gives plea­sure.
A choco­late par­fait with thick choco­late syrup gives plea­sure.
A fun movie, with a bucket of pop­corn on the side, gives plea­sure.
A roller coaster ride gives plea­sure.
A kiss gives pleasure.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between plea­sure and hap­pi­ness?
Plea­sure is an out­side job.
But hap­pi­ness is an inside job.
It doesn’t depend on any exter­nal cir­cum­stances. Yep, even if you only have three strands of hair on your head.
Hap­pi­ness isn’t the absence of problems.

By the way, do you want me to show you a few peo­ple who don’t have prob­lems? Great. Bring your shovel out and let’s dig them up from their graves.
The Bible doesn’t say, “Be joy­ful some­times.” Or “Be joy­ful when you don’t have prob­lems.” The Bible says, “Be joy­ful always.”

It that pos­si­ble? I mean, c’mon. No one can be happy 365 days a year.
But the Bible says, “Be joy­ful always” because hap­pi­ness isn’t a mood.
Hap­pi­ness isn’t an emo­tion either.

Hap­pi­ness is a way of life.

7 Tools Of Happiness

I know of strange human beings walk­ing this face of the earth who are extremely happy. Not just mod­er­ately or mildly happy. But deeply joy­ful. (Hey, you may be one of them. Congratulations! )

I know them. Some of them are my friends.
Because of my work, I’ve trav­eled all over the world.
Last count: 36 coun­tries. That’s a lot of fre­quent flyer miles, jet lag, and lost lug­gage. But that also means I’ve met more peo­ple than the aver­age per­son on the street. It’s not just the sheer num­ber or the vari­ety of peo­ple I’ve met. Because I’m a preacher, I’ve not only met them, I’ve engaged many of them on a deep level. Like on our first meet­ing (or phone call or email), they open up their heart and pour to me their prob­lems like I was their soul mate.

So I have this dis­tinct advan­tage of know­ing lots and lots of peo­ple on an inten­sity that’s beyond super­fi­cial. So I asked myself this ques­tion: Who are the hap­pi­est peo­ple I know? I listed them down. After sift­ing through the hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple archived in my brain, I asked a more dif­fi­cult ques­tion: What is com­mon among them all?

I came up with seven great things I see in extremely happy people.

I call them the 7 Tools of Happiness:

1. Happy peo­ple cre­ate their des­tiny
2. Happy peo­ple like them­selves a lot
3. Happy peo­ple nur­ture con­nec­tions
4. Happy peo­ple find delight every­where
5. Happy peo­ple embrace change
6. Happy peo­ple trust deeply
7. Happy peo­ple work their pur­pose daily

But let me share with you why many peo­ple are unhappy…

Your Body Is Hard­wired To Be Afraid

The enemy of hap­pi­ness isn’t sad­ness.
The enemy of hap­pi­ness isn’t prob­lems.
The enemy of hap­pi­ness isn’t lone­li­ness.
The enemy of hap­pi­ness is fear.
Our lives are so fueled by it. We run our lives by fear.

In Dan Baker’s excel­lent book, What Happy Peo­ple Know, he explains how our body cir­cuitry is wired to fear.

Our brains have three parts. The brain stem, the amyg­dala, and the neo­cor­tex. The more prim­i­tive parts of our brains, the brain steam (also called the rep­til­ian brain, because rep­tiles have these for brains) and the amyg­dala are pro­grammed for fear. Why? Our ances­tors needed fear for their phys­i­cal sur­vival. Imag­ine your­self liv­ing in the wilder­ness with lions, wolves, and cobras around you. Dan­ger lurks behind every tree and shaddow.

Once their brains reg­is­ter fear, the endocrine glands pro­duce our fear hor­mones adren­a­line and cor­ti­sol. It gave them super strength to fight or flight. And in fight­ing or flee­ing, they exhaust the adren­a­line and cor­ti­sol in their bod­ies. Well and good. But what about us who usu­ally sit behind desks and work on computers?

We still have the same fear mechanism.

But this time, we’re no longer afraid of lions or cobras behind every tree.
We afraid of our ris­ing credit card bills.
We’re afraid of our boss.
We’re afraid of los­ing our jobs.
We’re afraid for our children—what will hap­pen to their future?
We’re afraid that at 35, we won’t get mar­ried any­more.
We’re afraid we’ll grow lonely.
We’re afraid we’ll run out of money.
We’re afraid of social rejec­tion.
We’re afraid of social shame and los­ing face.
We’re afraid of dis­ease.
And these fears are so real, our endocrine glands pro­duce adren­a­line and cor­ti­sol as well. And because we’re seated behind our desks, pound­ing on our com­put­ers, we really don’t use up any of it. Adren­a­line and cor­ti­sol become poi­son in our bod­ies, destroy­ing our health bit by bit.

Thus, very few peo­ple are happy.

Con­clu­sion: If you want to be happy, we need to over­come our fears.

How?

The Only Anti­dote to Fear Is…

Twenty years ago, a friend gave me a book about fac­ing fears.

My arro­gant response to her: “Thanks for the book. But frankly, I don’t think I need it. I don’t know why, but fear isn’t a prob­lem for me. I don’t have any fears.”

Ten years later, I ate my words.

Because after a deep soul search, I real­ized how my life was run by many fears. Many of the things I was doing I did because of fear!
I feared what other peo­ple said about me.
I feared fail­ure.
I feared angry peo­ple.
I feared of not hav­ing enough.
I feared of not being enough.
In my life, I’ve dis­cov­ered that there is only one thing that can over­come fear.
There is only one thing that is more pow­er­ful than fear.

The only anti­dote to fear is love.

When you fill your life with love, your fears nat­u­rally dis­ap­pears.
I’m talk­ing about a love for God, a love for oth­ers, a love for your­self, and a love for life itself. The Bible says, Per­fect love casts out all fear, and I totally believe it.

In fact, remem­ber the 7 Tools of Hap­pi­ness I listed above? Every sin­gle one of them is really a facet of love—and each tool can drive away a spe­cific fear in your life. Once your fears are gone, hap­pi­ness will flood your soul.