How to Make Yourself Unhappy

"You are unhappy because you are stuck in a self-imposed conditional statement."

-- Aliyah Marr

Huh? What's a "self-imposed conditional statement?" It's like this: You say "I'll be happy when I move into my new condo." Or when I graduate from college, or get a really good job, or find the partner of my dreams, or make a million bucks, or write the great American novel, or retire, or...

It's the "I'll be happy" when formula that's the whole damn problem. Aliyah calls it "the happiness deferred excuse." You give yourself permission to delay happiness, to be unhappy now because you'll be happy someday when certain external conditions are met. Pure unadulterated bullshit!

Anytime your happiness is conditional you're screwed. If you can't be happy until you get what you want, until someone else changes, until you achieve such and such and so and so, until the planets align in some fortuitous cosmic pattern, you ain't never going to be happy.

Oh sure, you may feel a nice, little, warm glow for short periods of time. Like that first day or week that you're behind the wheel of your shiny new car. But lasting happiness? No way. Lasting happiness, true joy only comes in one form -- unconditional.

In that sense happiness is a decision not a certain set of conditions. You decide to be happy no matter what, come that proverbial hell or high water. "Happiness now" becomes your credo, and you don't settle for a delayed gratification, you don't make yourself, or the world, jump through a bunch of crazy hoops to get it.

Not feeling it? Refocus -- either externally or internally. Make a list of all the wonderful things about your life, of all the wonderful things about life in general. Or go for a walk and look for the beautiful, the humorous, the awe-inspiring, the pleasant, the outrageous. Or read a favorite book, listen to a music that really gets you high, or call up an old friend.

Or take the inner path. Sit down, shut up and go within. Go past the thoughts and garbage and tales of "woe is me" until you come to a clearing, a space of light and love and happiness. It's always there waiting for you. It never goes away, we go away, and then we run all over hell's half acre looking for something to make us happy. 

Something will never make you happy for long. Everything makes you happy, nothing makes you happy, but the conditional specific thing, never.  Everything is the entire external world, the "ten thousand things" as Lao Tzu called it. It is brimming with happiness. 

Nothing is truly the realm of of no-thing, the space of Spirit within. It is where you and happiness are one, where the face you had before you were born smiles at you from the mirror of your own mind. 

Accept it all -- the within, the without. Embrace it all. Feel the happiness of the unconditional, of the here, of the now. Always, already happy. What could be better?

Stop Doing Unhappy!

"Then it hit me -- being unhappy was something I'd been doing, and when I stopped doing it, I reverted to my natural state, which is happy."

-- Orson Bean

Unhappiness doesn't just happen. We make it happen. We do unhappiness. How? By how we focus our attention. By focusing upon what we don't like, on what we find negative or lacking, we conjure up internal storm clouds of unhappiness. Doing unhappiness is tough mental work!

It begins with judging. We awaken. The world is as it is. For some reason, though, we feel that it is our role to judge the world and project upon it how we think it should be. If it's raining, it should be sunny dammit, and so we become unhappy. If lying in bed next to us is an imperfect person, they should be smarter, richer, prettier, better, or at least they should appreciate us more! We should all over ourselves and the world all the time, and all it does is increase our unhappiness!

The moment you stop judging, condemning, and shoulding, you start undoing unhappiness. You don't need to repeat positive affirmations. You don't need to visualize a perfect world. You don't need to channel disembodied beings of light or believe that Jesus died for your sins. Just accept what is. 

Acceptance is the great slayer of the dragon of unhappiness. Or for you techie types, acceptance is the reset button that returns your mind to its original, factory setting -- a natural state of happiness. Out of acceptance grows appreciation. Once you quit arguing with reality, you begin to see that it is pretty damn cool! The rain brings the flowers, the person lying in bed next to you gets up and makes some kick ass blueberry pancakes.

Flowers and pancakes are great, but they're merely icing on the cake. True happiness begins within. Quit doing unhappiness, and lo and behold, happiness is all that's left. You happy. Or if you want to get real Zen about it -- no you, just happy. Either way, unhappy no more.