There are two roads to your happy place

Some people have to learn this the hard way.

I have to admit, there have been times I’ve felt like seeking out the Wizard for answers, not realizing that I could have just kept my ass at home and awakened to the fact that everything I needed was right there.

But some of us like to do things the hard way.

I’d never heard of Synthetic Happiness until I listened to Dan Gilbert’s TED Interview. It blew my mind and changed my thoughts about what I needed to be happy.

Synthetic Happiness, simply put, is the idea that you can be just as happy if you don’t get what you want, as you can if you do get what you want.

How is that possible?

Our minds are designed to adapt and move forward with the outcome that occurs. You can manufacture your own happiness. And it’s just as real as natural happiness.

Let that sink in.

Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist who studies the science of happiness, and what he calls prospection — looking into the future and our estimation of how bad or good things will make us feel, is often way off base.

Here’s how synthetic happiness and prospection gave me some real light bulb moments.

The difference between good and bad is what we think it is

Good things are good and bad things are bad. Right? Well, buckle your seat belt.

It turns out that because we have this ability to prospect or look into the future, we may inflate how bad something will be based on our lived experiences.

Conversely, we tend to also diminish how good a current situation is because we prospect how much better something else out there could be.

Interestingly, when we are put into what we perceive to be a bad situation without a choice, our amazing brain kicks into gear to begin putting a positive spin around it. It creates for us a blessing in disguise.

Humans naturally want to find the silver lining every time.

Our negative experiences may become good ones

As it turns out, people are not very good at predicting what will make them happy and how long that happiness will last. They expect positive events to make them much happier than those events actually do, and they expect negative events to make them unhappier than they actually do.

When Pete Best, the original drummer of The Beatles was replaced by Ringo Starr, he could have easily felt that was the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. After all, he was a part of their rise to stardom, then poof! He’s out. Instead, he contended “I’m happier than I would have been with the Beatles.”

He honestly felt like he was much better off in his life because of it, though at the moment it was devastating.

Many little happy’s are better than a few big happy’s

A finding by psychologist Ed Diener shows that many small positive experiences that bring you joy more often are a better predictor of your overall happiness than the size, cost, or intensity of them.

It’s common to seek a lofty benchmark for happiness or success like a new boat, a beach house, or becoming wealthy. But the research shows that if you experience many smaller nice things, more often, daily if possible, you’re likely to be happier.

This makes a good case for finding joy in small things every day, an idea I’ve come to fully buy into as the years go by.

Here are some of my mini-happy’s that I’ve found make a difference in my every day.

• Love and pamper your body with long baths or showers, exfoliate, use rich body lotions, stretch daily, get a massage.

• Get the best sheets and bedding you can afford. Daily, blissful joy.

• Get outside every day. No headphones or talking. Just look and listen-soak it all in.

• Never compromise on coffee or wine. Get the best you can, they are simple pleasures that make a big difference.

• Sit quietly, light a candle, and journal, meditate or pray.

That’s not that hard, is it?

Rationalizing, Coping, and Synthetic Happiness

Consider these comparisons:

Rationalizing is a way of interpreting, or explaining something (such as bad behavior) that makes it seem proper, more attractive.

You try to make sense of or make a case for what you’re doing, though your reasons may not be logical.

Positive Coping involves changing one’s perspective or reframing the situation to view it as an opportunity instead of a problem (Changing Minds, n.d.)

Synthetic Happiness is happiness that comes from our good thoughts about events that may seem bad at first.

All are somewhat similar in that they demonstrate that we have the power within us to make sense or make the best of our situations. It’s fair to say that in each case you will be discovering things about yourself and your feelings that you couldn't have ever known until you were faced with them.

In each case, you’re choosing the option or scenario that makes your life better. That option will make likely you happy.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Bottom line, it may be best not to try to seek out happiness, try to predict it, or work tirelessly to achieve a utopian idea of it.

When you pull back the curtain and understand that how you talk to yourself about any given situation and mindfully adapt to it, you’ll be on the very road that will lead you home.

🎉 P.S. More musings on 🎧🔥The Badass Midlife Podcast🔥🎧

Juicy midlife topics…with a twist.