maybe instead of chasing happiness
we need to embrace joy and create space for beauty instead
Leave room for nothingness,
because out of nothing is where something is born,
through a liminal state of mind,
in trust, in faith, with grace,
every new opportunity is a chance to embrace,
inclined to stay aligned,
find the time to be kind,
be brave, create the space,
resign to this place,
stay on pace,
nothing is certain,
it is by design,
mankind is intertwined with the sublime;
everything is about a state of mind.
Here are three things I read this week that stood out:
“We just accept the prevalent worldview uncritically, often for no better reason than that it’s what “everybody” thinks. As we grow up, we absorb and internalize from our parents and culture a whole slew of beliefs and prejudices about how the world works, what life is about, and what is important. However, most of these unexamined opinions are confused, contradictory, hopelessly simplistic, or just plain wrong. So we blunder mindlessly through life, treating each other badly for no good reason, limiting our horizon, and wasting effort on things that don’t matter and may even make us positively miserable, all the while wondering why our lives feel so meaningless and unsatisfying.”
— “Dr. Seuss and Philosophy: Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!”, edited by Jacob M. Held (2011)
“The idea that happiness, or keeping one’s thoughts pleasant most of the time, can be deliberately and systematically cultivated by practicing in a more or less cold-blooded manner, strikes many of my patients as rather incredible, if not ludicrous, when I first suggest it. Yet experience has shown not only that this can be done, but that it is about the only way that the “habit of happiness” can be cultivated. In the first place happiness isn’t something that happens to you. It is something you yourself do and determine upon. If you wait for happiness to catch up with you, or “just happen,” or be brought to you by others, you are likely to have a long wait. No one can decide what your thoughts shall be but yourself. If you wait until circumstances “justify” your thinking pleasant thoughts, you are also likely to wait forever. Every day is a mixture of good and evil—no day or circumstances is completely 100 precent “good.” There are elements and “facts” present in the world, and in our personal lives at all times, that “justify” either a pessimistic and grumpy outlook, or an optimistic and happy outlook, depending on our choice. It is largely a matter of selection, attention, and decisions. Nor is it a matter of being either intellectually honest or dishonest. Good is as “real” as evil. It is merely a matter of what we choose to give primary attention to—and what thoughts we hold in the mind.”
— “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz, MD, FICS. (1960)
Conveniently, here’s the entire audiobook available for free on Youtube!
If you’re into understanding yourself, your mind, and how you see yourself—which I assume is why you subscribe to this newsletter—then trust me, this book is worth your time! It’s a game-changing guide to understanding yourself a million times better, even if it was written in 1960 and fascinatingly by a plastic surgeon observing his patients.
“Despite our attraction to cute things, I’ve noticed that cuteness sometimes has a pejorative connotation. Just like play itself, it is easily dismissed as frivolous. But research indicates that cuteness actually affects our attention in positive ways. A recent study from Japan showed that people performed better on tasks requiring intense concentration and conscientiousness after looking at cute babies and animals. The researchers speculate that cute aesthetics could be beneficial in application that demand heightened focus, such as driving or office work. This suggests that Apple may have been onto something when it launched the bubbly iMac in the late 1990s and that a cute task lamp or stationery set isn’t just playful, but may be practical as well.”
— “Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness” by Ingrid Fetell Lee (2018).
And of course, there’s a TED talk on this.
I am reminded of how valuable mastery of my mind is—but also how important the attitudes I choose to nurture and carry into my everyday life are.
At any given moment, I can find happiness and enjoy life to the fullest if I train my mind to focus on the gifts of life rather than it’s shortcomings. No matter how it appears, no one and no life is perfect.
Perfection is an ideal of the imagination with no equivalent in real life. Even in nature, what you’ll find are imperfections.
I can either make myself more miserable by berating myself and worrying about things I cannot change, or I can choose to pay attention to the silver linings. Through the straightforward, though admittedly difficult, mental task of reframing my story and shifting my thoughts, I can completely alter my experienced reality.
Because it’s the narratives we tell ourselves that shape our every experience.
This is what I am celebrating this week: acknowledging our liberty—the responsibility and autonomy—to take control of this innate mental ‘switch,’ nature’s greatest gift that’s always been waiting within us.
Though as Lee points out, ‘cuteness’—and what surrounds us— does play a role, it’s the intentional, minute-to-minute shifts we consciously choose that give us the ability to transform any experience at an instant.
If this is not what you call magic, I don’t know what is.
“Maybe instead of chasing after happiness, what we should be doing is embracing joy, and finding ways to put ourselves in the path of it more often. Deep within us we all have this impulse to seek out joy in our surroundings and we have it for a reason. Joy isn’t some superfluous extra, it’s directly connected for our fundamental instinct for survival. On the most basic level, the drive towards joy is the drive towards life.”
— “Where joy hides and how to find it,” Ingrid Fetell Lee, April 2018, TED Talk.
Happy Hue is an independent newsletter—where philosophy, wellbeing, and creativity meet. Let’s create space to embrace all our hues.