If I'm So Smart, Why Can't I Be Happy?

By The Author Incubator

Who doesn’t want to be happier? We want it for ourselves, our kids, our spouses and friends and yet being happy is so often out of reach. In this practical guide you’ll learn the steps and strategies that make it possible to get happy; but this book goes deeper and uncovers the hidden reasons why it can be so hard to get happy and stay that way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Author Incubator
• Release date: Apr 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781936984381

The Author Incubator

Angela Lauria founded The Author Incubator and Difference Press in 2010. A well-respected direct response marketing consultant, life coach, and doctor of communications, Angela is an entrepreneur and an internationally recognized expert in online direct response marketing and Diffusion of Innovation theory. Previously she founded and continues to operate Nimble Cricket Communications, an Internet consulting firm established in 1994. A voracious reader, especially of self-help and philosophy books, Angela has been a student of A Course in Miracles since 1992. She feels lucky to have been coached by Brooke Castillo, Cindy Roman, Jeanette Eleff, Alina Frank, and Barbara Kenyon. Through reading, therapy and coaching she has married her natural gift for logic, order, and analysis with the freedom and passion of connection. Angela holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a Master’s degree in Media & Public Affairs from The George Washington University. In 2004, Angela received a PhD magna cum laude in Communications from the European Graduate School. Her dissertation: “From Medea to Media: Live Performance as a Vehicle for Social Change” was published by ATRPOS PRESS as part of the Think Media Philosophy Series. In 2009, Angela was certified as a Life coach from The Coaching Academy of North America.

Book preview

Introduction

Happiness is not only possible, it is realistic. You already have all that you need to reach it. You may find that happiness is a difficult goal to reach—that’s because, unlike other ambitions, it is not a finite destination, it’s a continuous one. Happiness is a place; it exists within you. It is a place that you build and cultivate. The journey to happiness is not a race; you do not need skill or effort to be happy. Happiness is easy to find. You need nothing more than yourself to find it, cultivate it, and grow it.

Happiness is a state. As such it is both a place to be, and a way of being. Happiness can be found, and it can be cultivated. Imagine happiness as a beautiful hidden garden that grows in the world of your mind. You first must find the garden, and once found, you can cultivate it.

No book will give you happiness, not even this one, for happiness is something you must find in your own life. You are a traveler on the road to happiness. This book will give you a guide to using the tools you already have to discover and foster your happiness. Think of this book as both a map to happiness and an owner’s manual to your happy state. No one will show you happiness, but this book should be an almanac for the journey.

Some people who find happiness struggle to maintain it. This book will help you take control of your life and own your happiness. You will learn to find happiness and bring yourself back to it with ease. Once you understand how easy it is to be happy, you will no longer struggle with happiness.

This book is going to be honest. The truth is bright, but reality is not always dazzling. True happiness requires the ability to maintain a positive, realistic outlook in any situation. This does not mean you are always going to be giddy and bubbly, but it does mean that you’ll be able to return to happiness, even in tough situations. Your happiness fuels your inner-strength, and your inner strength fortifies your happiness.

I know this book will help you find and maintain happiness. I know that on a basic level, all people rely on the same tools for happiness, and are hampered by the same inhibitions to reaching it. So although I do not know you, I know well the personal struggle for happiness. Even though all people are different, their fundamentals for happiness are the same. For example, while I appreciate a wonderful window view and you may not, there is—as I look out to the sky—the same principle that can guide both of us to happiness: appreciation. Appreciation is just one tool you can use to build and find happiness.

This book will show you that you already have all the ingredients for the recipe to happiness. You will learn that the map to happiness is one that you make as you go along. This book will show you that it’s important to confront your feelings as they are, and to feel them. Hopefully you will come to understand the power of confidence, intention, and belief. You must want to be happy and believe you can be, before you deliberately can be. Happiness is a garden that you must cultivate and nourish. It is not selfish to look after yourself. In order to prepare for the future, you must realize all of this and simultaneously understand your current standing in life.

Do not think of this book as a code of commandments. Rather, consider it a blueprint. All maps are drawn from experience: from understanding a place and its details. As a map to happiness this book is no different. You will read about others’ experiences; you may find a reflection of yourself in the pages of this book. You will see the journey to happiness, and understand the tenets for this voyage. Through these pages you will live the experiences of others as they have built their ways to happiness.

You will learn to move: leave your doldrums, your boring routine, and discontent—and make the trek to a place called happiness. Once you find happiness and consciously recognize that state, you will always be able to return. In happiness, you will uncover the tools you need to fortify your confidence, your willpower, and your inner strength. By doing so, your happiness will flourish. You will soon come to cultivate your happiness.

Your life as a happy person begins now—and you’ve already taken the first step.

A Recipe for Happiness

"In this grand world you play the part of you. You control yourself, your state, and your decisions. You are a mind with infinite power and potential."

Happiness Tool #1

Question Happiness

You question every day. You question aspects of your life: from large questions—whether you’ve picked the right job—to the more trivial—if you’ve remembered to lock the door when you left your house—you are constantly questioning. Even those who are the happy ones among us still question—and questioning can be healthy. It is important to have the right questions about the right topics. Right questioning allows you to gain knowledge about yourself, self-knowledge allows you to be happy.

If you are reading this book, it’s likely that many of your questions lead to worries. Worries stem from unwarranted questions. For example, you may worry about getting to work on time. This type of worry is unwarranted on its own, and its questions do not resolve anything. Worrying whether or not you will get to work on time will not help you get there faster. It is useless to ask things like: Why didn’t I leave earlier?; Why is the bus taking so long?; and When will all the traffic end? These are all examples of dead-end questions.

Questions that lead to dead ends serve no purpose. Dead-end questions are most commonly associated with unwarranted worries. Dead-end questions concern those things over which you have no control. I cannot advise you never to question those things over which you have no control; I can only tell you that your questioning will have no influence on such things. Dead-end questioning is a waste of time.

Resolution questions help you make progress and solve issues.

It may be difficult to stop dead-end questioning as some habits are instinctual. But don’t fret—it’s easy to start the right kind of questioning. Useful questions are those that you can ponder, they are questions that can help you create resolutions. Resolution questions are those that help you solve issues. If your car breaks down on the side of the road, instead of asking a dead-end question like, Why did this happen to me?, ask a resolution question like How can I solve this issue in an effective manner? The first question just wastes time; the latter leads to a resolution. Maybe you’ll call a mechanic; maybe you’ll jumpstart your car—in any event your resolution question will help you get to a better place.

What do dead-end questions and resolution questions have to do with happiness? Everything, for questions are the key to understanding. The great philosophers of old—Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—used questions to reach understandings of everything, from justice to happiness. You will use questions to find the root of your unhappiness, to think critically about your situation, and to define happiness for you.

The idea of reaching happiness may be daunting for some of us. Happiness defines some people, and unhappiness defines others. If something is so pertinent, important, and prevalent in life, one would think to deal with it and question it in a special way. But to question happiness and unhappiness you must use resolution questions—the same questions you would use to solve problems like a broken-down car.

To come to happiness you must first recognize and understand your unhappiness.

Many of us can’t find happiness because we ask dead-end questions in our search. We ask ourselves things like How do others find happiness so easily? or Why do bad things happen to me? but these questions lead to idle answers. The first question focuses on others instead of on the self, and we all know we cannot control the will of others. The second question also focuses externally—we cannot control external chance occurrences. These dead-end questions are useless. Instead, use resolutions questions to make progress in your search for happiness.

We already know what kind of questions we want to use to reach happiness—but specifically, what should you ask yourself? Before you can understand happiness, you must understand your lesser emotions.

Try this exercise: write down questions that you think could have to do with your happiness, even in a slight way. Make sure these questions are resolution questions and not dead-end questions. If you cannot readily and reasonably answer your questions they are dead-end questions. Find some resolution questions to start off with on the next page.

Ask yourself:

1. What things bring me joy?

2. What do I enjoy to doing?

3. What things do I find boring?

4. What scenarios, and thoughts annoy me?

5. Who do I like to be around?

6. _________________

7. _________________

8. _________________

9. _________________

10. _________________

Use these sample questions to start thinking about the things that affect you in your life. What things affect you most? How do they affect you—do they affect you positively or negatively? Begin questioning yourself and your happiness with these first five questions, and then take some space to ask yourself more things.

By now, you should have a feel for the types of questions that will help you. Ask yourself five additional resolution questions that you think have to do with your happiness. Remember not to question your circumstances, but rather the causes and effects of them. Don’t wonder about your fortune or misfortune, but what you can do to take control of these things.

After you’ve questioned yourself in this simple way, you’ll be ready to move onto more pressing questions. In order to find your way out of unhappiness and discover the state of happiness within you, you must first understand your unhappiness. Questioning unhappiness, you will be able to find the root cause of it and thus consciously move past it.

Question unhappiness, and you can thus understand and reach happiness.

A difficulty many of us face is the fact that we cannot readily recognize our state of happiness or unhappiness. We don’t know if we are happy or unhappy. Maybe we have busy lives and do not have the time to ponder our states. Maybe we are afraid to confront our emotions. Whatever the issue, EVEN IF YOU IGNORE YOUR HAPPINESS OR UNHAPPINESS, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO IGNORE THE EFFECTS OF THAT STATE. That is why it is so important to consciously investigate your happiness and unhappiness. Doing so can help you recognize and rid yourself of negative side effects, and maximize positive side effects. To come to an understanding of happiness you must first question unhappiness. To know what will make you happy you first must recognize what makes you unhappy.

Question unhappiness, and you can thus understand and reach happiness.

You’ve already questioned some things that affect you negatively in the ten-question exercise. These types of questions are resolution questions, but they are not questions about happiness. Enjoyment, pleasure, and fun: these are all lower order positive states. They are not happiness. Happiness may contain these states, but it may also contain lower-order negative states. A happy person experiences good times and bad times as any other person would.

It is important to distinguish lower order states from upper order states. Lower order states can be identified by their brief nature. Joy, pleasure, and fun—these do not envelop your life and your living; they exist briefly, fleetingly, and then go away. Boredom, grief, annoyance, and sadness are also lower order states. Moments of these negative and positive lower order states exist in both happiness and unhappiness.

To begin to question unhappiness you must first recognize your state. If you want progress, it is important to answer honestly. Ask yourself this: Am I happy? If you cannot assuredly answer yes, then you need to do some more inner investigation. No person is always overjoyed all of the time, but the point here is to identify your overall state as happy, unhappy, or somewhere in between. In life there are times that make you happy, and times that make you unhappy. The truly happy person can treat the positives and the negatives with the same truthful, yet optimistic, outlook.

It may seem daunting now, to consider yourself as unhappy when before you may not have considered your happiness or unhappiness at all. But this uneasy state of realization is brief, and it is necessary for the journey towards happiness. Questioning your state, you will see part of your unhappiness. But know that all people live with a mix of happiness and unhappiness in their lives. So though you cannot say you are fully and truly happy, you are also not truly and fully unhappy. YOU ARE A BLEND OF HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS, LIKE EVERY OTHER PERSON.

You can use the ten questions from before to further investigate the things that make you unhappy. Ask yourself more questions about your unhappiness. When are you most unhappy? How does your unhappiness affect you? Are you typically aware or unaware of your unhappiness? Try to offer concrete answers