On Being Happy: Part 1: Stop Being So Back-Assward!

Just got back from a trip to India, which was the first time in years that I've been 'suspended from normalcy' enough to think about the big picture. I had a lot of time to think, to read, to hang out with family and some really great people I met there. India ended up being so much better than I ever thought it could be, mainly because of the people I met there. Hmmmm. People. I didn't think I liked them that much. Could I be on to something?

Well, yes.  Here it is: Life is about enjoying and experiencing other people. Fairly obvious to most everyone else, but this is big stuff for me!

Part of this revelation may have been influenced by some of the books I picked up during the trip. The amazing thing about books is that you find the ones you need when you need them. The Happiness Advantage and The Shift have really taught me to never judge a book by the initial "self improvement for greater work efficiency" covers, because they're really about being happy more than being an efficient corporate citizen.

This isn't the place for me to give you a blow by blow account of the books. If you can read this, you can read them. So let me summarize my takeaways from both books:

1. My quality of life is directly proportional to the quality of the relationships I have with the people around me.
2. Those relationships are much more effective at making me happy than than the things I do -- work, athletic endeavors, etc.
3. When I'm happy, the things I love to do tend to go much better.
4. When things get hard, the most important step I can take is to interact with other people. Not necessarily whine about my life, but involve myself in theirs to (a) forget about myself and (b) put my problems in the right perspective.

Wow. This is not my default operational mode. Let me revisit the Arun Jacob Standard Operating Manual:

1. I find happiness by pushing myself hard at work, at play, etc, because there is real meaning in pushing at my limits.
2. I have relationships through the things I do. They are by-products of the things I do -- they involve people that do those things.
3. My pursuit of happiness is largely a solitary effort. Lots of time is spent alone. Even in a group I'm focused on the activity first, the companionship second.
4. When the going gets hard, I go it alone. I don't want to burden anyone with my issues.

This approach worked quite well in my 20s, when my friends at work were my closest friends and we set up work to enable us to do the things we loved, which gave us a lot of time to snowboard, climb, etc. Oh, and we had a lot of time and flexibility in which to live this way. I had a blast. 

When kids came long, the time and flexibility went away, and my priorities and perspectives changed radically. I love my kids, and I love spending time with them. But I can't do that and go on weekend trips with the guys. Who have all since gotten married and had kids of their own, so they wouldn't be available anyways. So I shifted to a lot of solitary exercise. Long bike rides and runs really served to ground me. And I've found that triathlons can be as fun as long climbs or epic snowboarding days.

But right now, at (almost!) 43, married, as a husband and father who works for a large corporation that does not have the same snow day policy that my friends did, I don't have the option getting happiness and relationships as by products of work or play. That is quite simply an inefficient approach that doesn't scale to my life today, because to do it right would mean I have less time to be a husband and father. And I love being a husband and a father, so scaling back on either is not an option.

I'm not throwing everything out: in fact, I have no intention of throwing anything out -- maybe I'll put some stuff on the shelf, but long runs and rides, snowboarding, surfing are still as fun as ever. This year I want to go off-road with triathlons, and get back into mountainbiking, something that I really enjoyed before kids came along. And climbing was too much a part of my soul to ever completely let go of. I know there will be a time in my life when I will have the time to get back into it. 

But I've known for some time that I have a fundamental misalignment that is preventing me from being as happy as I can be. Now I see that doing these things in pursuit of happiness is putting the cart before the horse. 

When that happens on the job, I get frustrated, start whining, and quit. I've had a journeyman career, and while part of that has been great, it's actually been caused by how I work. I tunnel into hard problems because I enjoy them, but then I over extend, completely over work, and end up feeling unappreciated for my efforts. So I move on.

When that happens in a marriage ... lets just say that my amazing wife stuck it out through some very painful times during and after my dad got sick and passed away.  My initial tendencies during that time were to retreat into myself and lock everyone else out, including her. That didn't work out so well. Now time has passed, the kids are older, we have more time to talk, and we are enjoying one another. But when I look back at that time, I cannot explain how I got my head out of my ass, other than to say that something much bigger than me was doing the pulling. 

Another example: this past year in Triathlons I lost my way, putting mileage and target pace ahead of fundamental health. I'm still paying the price for that (hello, left achilles tendon!). The tris I did last summer were not nearly as fun as the ones I did the summer before, when I had no expectations. 

So while I am slowly moving in the right direction, I've still got a long way to go to change from pursuing happiness through activities to being happy by being with and around people. 

My pursuit of happiness is selfish. It absolutely is! But when I'm happy, I have a much better chance to make other people around me happy. And, as a husband, a father, a friend, a co-worker, a human, that seems like a very unselfish thing to do.

So. Where to go from here?