Flexibility and Challenge

Flexibility and Challenge - Two keys being happy.

Be Flexible

Gratitude is the number one key to happiness. Basically if you are grateful then you are happy and if you are ungrateful then you are not. However if you take a closer look at the way things work it becomes clear that being flexible is also an important key to being happy.

When I don't feel like doing something, most of the time I do not do it and I do something else that I feel like doing instead.

My reasons for this are simple : when you do something that you don't want to, you do it badly. I figure that this is one of the first steps to take if you want to live a high quality life. I have learned, and I now know that if I come back to this same task later when I am full of energy and enthusiasm I will complete it easily, effortlessly and will do it to the best of my abilities.

I try to be as alert as possible as to what is going on inside me (how and what I feel) and as flexible as possible in this way at all times. Doing this makes life much more pleasant than it would be if I were not flexible about how I organize my time.

However there are exceptions. There are times when I have to do things that are not pleasant. And there are times where I consciously choose to do things that are not pleasant because I know that the best way to get what I really want is to do them, now.

Simple examples of unpleasant things I do anyway : car mechanics and getting full of oil and grease when I could be having a cup of tea and playing guitar, unblocking the sink in the bathroom (smell), talking openly about how I feel in psychologically tense situations etc...

These situations do occur, they do for everybody. In these cases waiting is not always a good idea.

OK, fixing my car might be able to wait for a week or two (if I can get by without it). Unblocking the sink on the other hand cannot if I am going to keep using it. And, in my experience, speaking openly about how I feel on the moment is far healthier than 'bottling up' a bunch of feelings that I have not been able to deal with.

Therefore if I want to use my car, I go and fix it even though it would be easier and more pleasant not to do so. If the sink gets blocked I unblock it. If I feel upset about something and I don't feel comfortable about expressing myself, well I express myself anyway, even if it would be easier not to.

Challenge Yourself

At this stage you are probably thinking "So what?" so do I unblock my sink when it gets blocked even though it's unpleasant. Well here is the interesting bit : Do you consciously turn unblocking the sink into a challenge that will get you one step closer to everlasting happiness?

These situations are opportunities to challenge yourself and hence to grow.

What is the challenge ?

Well it is subtle and easily missed. The challenge is to stay alert and aware of what is going on inside of you on a mental/emotional level. If you are able to do so you might notice that while you unblock your sink your mind starts to make noise. Perhaps you will hear your mind begin to complain about how "nobody else in this house ever does the cleaning". You may notice that you are experiencing negative emotions. Once you have noticed these things going on, the next step of the challenge is to not react, to prevent your mind and emotions from going in a direction you don't want them to and then building up momentum.

It seems obvious - and yet it is often overlooked - that mentally or verbally feeling bad about unblocking a sink drain (or doing anything else for that matter) does not help you do it.

Equally as obvious are the facts that when you are complaining you are not using your mind in a way that is useful to you and constructive and when you are feeling bad (unhappy) you are not feeling good (happy). Additionally, as I have already mentioned, being unhappy even makes the act of doing things seem harder and can prevent you from doing them well.

These very simple facts are the reasons why treating unpleasant experiences as challenges in the way I have just described is a powerful tool for being happy.

It is easier said than done, I know, but if you manage to stay peaceful while you unblock the sink, or fix your car, or express yourself in a tricky situation, then when you have finished doing so you will be free to do something else and enjoy it. By free I mean that your mind will not be caught up in a thought pattern that doesn't serve you and you will not be feeling unhappy (experiencing an unpleasant emotion that does not serve you).

On the other hand if you're mind gets out of control and you mentally complain the whole time that you spend doing one of these unpleasant things, once you have finished you probably will not be feeling very good. And it may not be as easy to move on to something else and enjoy it.

You will have given momentum to a bunch of thoughts and emotions that do not serve you.

Exactly the same thing happens when you try to avoid these challenging situations by, for example, making up a bunch of excuses and then trying to believe them. In doing so, you start of a mental/emotional pattern that is not useful and then you give it momentum by trying to believe it (or really believing it). The way to break free from a pattern of this kind is to become aware of it and then to realize that is not useful. After that, it will be easy to replace it with a more constructive set of thoughts and a healthier, more enjoyable, set of emotions.

Be Happy

Hence happiness can be achieved by developing both flexibility and the ability to (consciously) challenge yourself. When you are flexible and you accept the challenges you are faced with, it becomes possible to turn your life into a series of alternatively very pleasant and very exciting experiences.