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Chapter 1

How We Crave Happiness

Every so often we all experience rare moments of exquisite happiness – pure and boundless joy. What is it about these moments that makes them so good? And why can’t life be like that all the time?

Are we forever at the mercy of Lady Luck? Is this what decides how much happiness we will have in our lives – and when? Or is there something we can do to switch on to the possibility of creating happiness by design, creating happiness intentionally?

As we look back on our lives we can see the happy moments standing out above all other moments like clear landmarks in an otherwise bare landscape. In every life there will be happiness as well as pain, suffering and sadness. But as we look back over all the events of our life, I believe the happy moments always have the power to eclipse the sad.

One fascinating thing about some of the happy times is that they often seem incidental, not earth shattering at all, as if they almost came by accident.

For me, one such moment of happiness came when I was very young, so young it must be one of my first memories. I recall it was on a broad, well-kept lawn in India. Surrounding the patch of lawn was a neat grove of trees and our house, a comfortable bungalow, was nearby, partially shaded by the trees. The whole of nature around me seemed lush and kind. My father was there giving me encouragement and other members of my family were looking on as well. I was riding my two-wheeler bicycle in wide circles around this lawn much to the approval of my father and much to my own excitement. The memory is so intense. It is one of those moments of pure happiness that, if I revisit it in my mind, always moves me to tears of joy.

We have all had such moments and, if you pause for reflection, you will easily see similar times in your life.

But what are the ingredients of these moments? For me in India, was it the fact I was riding a bicycle? Probably not. I’m sure if I went back to India, found the same lawn and rode the same bicycle, I could not re-create the moment. Was it the fact that my parents were there? In itself, probably not. My parents were always there in my childhood, so why would this moment be any different from any other when they were with me?

Maybe there were other factors about riding the bicycle that made me happy. I’ll return to what these were later in the book, but for the moment I’ll leave the bike riding incident as an example of how happiness can often come in the simplest things. Often it is momentary and unexpected.

What purpose do these moments serve?

Another feature of these moments is that they often come at low points in a person’s life. It seems logically strange, but sometimes there is a thin dividing line between sadness, suffering, and happiness. Think back. Has this happened to you? Think back to the low points in your life, when things were going against you, when everything you touched went wrong. Invariably, many, many people report that right at the lowest ebb of their misery they have experienced a sudden and unexpected moment of deep and satisfying happiness. It is as if a little trap door had opened for just a moment in the roof of their dungeon showing them a glimpse of heaven. And in that moment the first speck of light suddenly grew to a strong beam, flooding the dark space.

Here is an extract from a letter I received recently. It is from a businessman who was doing it so tough, he often had to sleep in his car at a roadside stop just to save the few dollars it would have cost him to drive back home and drive out again next morning to the starting point for his day’s work. It reads:

One morning, after sleeping the night in my car, I awoke in a curiously happy mood. This was unexpected and inexplicable. The outward circumstances of my life and my business were appallingly bad. I had gone from success to failure. I had spent months worrying about things and by all logical measures I had no reason for feeling happy.

And yet, on this morning when I awoke, I didn’t just wake up in a happy mood, I felt totally serene – a deep joyfulness about being alive. My logical mind tried to interpose, ‘Stop feeling so happy, you’ve got nothing to be so happy about.’ But some inner light within my spirit was telling me to be elevated in this moment of pure and boundless joy.

In the mild light before the dawn I lay in the back seat of my car in a relaxed mood and savoured the moment. I watched the low bands of grey clouds above the eastern horizon through the back window and became aware that my senses were alert to every detail in the countryside around me. Far away on the horizon I watched the subtle interplay of colours in the clouds as the sun began to rise. Close to the car I looked at the little grasses and leaves with an intense appreciation I had never experienced before. All the time I was struck by the awe of this intense feeling of well-being.

I have experienced happiness on many occasions since then, but I have never again experienced a moment of such ecstatic and pure bliss. I will always remember that morning. I will also always remember the strange feeling of knowing there was no apparent reason for my happiness.

How do we explain those moments and what purpose do they serve? Can we re-use them now in some way? Are these spontaneous moments like the flashes of light in a diamond field telling us that there is more to be found?

Let’s move away from the spontaneous for a moment. By reviewing our lives we can also see there are other moments of happiness, deep and abiding, that seem to come from a process, a conscious process. They often seem to come at the end of a period of hard work or striving and are often associated with the metaphor of being on a journey. On these occasions happiness has come from the whole sequence of events of a journey: planning and choosing a destination, setting out on the journey, committing to an end goal, tackling obstacles and challenges along the way and, finally, arriving at the destination itself.

The journey and destination vary from individual to individual, but typically, happiness is derived from the realisation of the long held goal. The goal is the moment we often savour but true happiness has usually been part of the entire journey.

Here is an example. It tells the experience of a junior officer serving in the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS). He was an energetic man wanting to experience everything in life. Just the effort required to gain entry to this elite unit was, in itself, a great achievement. But he always wanted to experience more, and so, even whilst posted to the SAS he enrolled at University to complete a degree by part time study. It was really an effort for him to fit in all this study with the demands of army life, which often took him away to courses and exercises.

One day in January, high summer, he lay on his back on the neatly manicured lawn in front of the University’s Great Hall, a magnificent building of hewn limestone blocks. He was waiting for the exam results to be posted in the large window in the undercroft. He tried to relax. But the anticipation was filling him with a mix of emotions. He shaded his eyes with his forearm, looked into the sky and thought over and over, “I want to be a graduate of this University. I want to be a graduate of this University.”

Then a flurry of excitement as the notices went up. He joined the crowd of jostling students. Suddenly there it was – his name on the list. His eyes flicked across – “I’ve passed. I’ve done it, I’ve done it!” He was exhilarated, and deserved to be, for his achievement had required a long period of dedication and study. There had been many moments when it would have been easier for him to give up and get on with more practical things.

In the melee of happy students there was a general excitement, back slapping, hand shaking and congratulations. Everyone was happy in the shared exhilaration of success. Then there came the time to savour the personal happiness by himself. He hopped on his motorbike and rode off gleefully. His track took him around the scenic drive along the Swan River in Perth towards Claremont and home and family. The warm air ruffled at the loose fitting T-shirt as he went and the mild breeze swept around his bare arms and legs with a sensual feeling of physical well-being. He felt terrific. He felt like a million dollars. This is an example of the type of happiness that comes when people have worked for it.

It just so happens that the person who slept in the back of the car and the person who lay on the lawn outside the University’s Great Hall were one and the same man. This shows it is possible for the same individual to experience both forms of happiness – that which comes from the Universe as a gift, and that which is earned through work. It is not uncommon – everyone has experienced both forms of happiness. Think about your own life. Is this true for you?

Comparing the two experiences, the unexpected moment and the moment we have worked for, it seems some moments of happiness come to us by accident and some come by design. Each is an equally valid experience of happiness. What can we do to re-create them? Can we work towards being happy? Is it possible to combine the two, working in such a way to increase the chances of having some ‘accidental’ happiness, as well as having happiness we set out to achieve.

I believe the answer to both questions, ‘Intentional’ happiness and ‘Accidental’ happiness, is – definitely YES. This book deals primarily with the first question, the things you can do to create happiness intentionally. But I am also sure that by creating happiness intentionally, you will also create the circumstances, and mind set, for literally hundreds, thousands even, of wonderfully exciting moments of spontaneous happiness to occur.

Let me now return to the question of why we have the moments of accidental happiness and happiness in the midst of misery. My fundamental belief about these moments is that they are special moments of spiritual insight. I’m sure that it is the way the Universe, or God, or whatever word you want to use, opens up to us for a moment to show us the potential is there.

An important step to be taken by those who have achieved the happiness of the journey is to immediately reset a new plan and set out on a new journey – even in the moment of excitement when the destination of the old journey has been reached.

An associate of mine has related to me how there have been parts of her life that have been quite plagued by aimlessness, inability to reach any goal and, at moments, almost despair. She has certainly experienced the strange feeling of a sudden and intensely happy insight at a time of low emotional ebb. She summarises it very well when talking of this phenomenon of the happy moment in the midst of misery. She says:

When you reach that moment of complete despair the Universe or God or whatever, will actually intervene to give you one of those moments of profound and inexplicable happiness. It does this just to show you the potential that is still there. I have spoken to many people who have experienced that moment. It is given to us gratis, completely free! What we do with that moment is ultimately up to us and might actually be one of the tests of our lives. We can slide back and lose it. Or we can hold it before us and use discipline and intentional acts to pursue it.

This type of experience is by no means confined to the people of our own time. It is recorded in many places in more ancient literature. Religious writings are full of it, descriptions of ecstasy, sublime happiness, unbounded joy. For example, in the Christian scriptures Saint Paul, in the second letter to the Corinthians, describes the experience in which, he reports, he was taken up into the ‘third heaven’. He tells that he saw things beyond the ability for humans to understand. There has been much conjecture about what Paul was describing, because notions such as ‘third heavens’ have nothing to do with the core of Christianity at all. So it must have been something which was happening in St. Paul’s mind and even St. Paul could not decide whether the experience was a physical one or a purely spiritual one. Whatever it was it must have been a powerful experience because it was one of the things that kept him going throughout his whole life. St. Paul led a life in which he experienced considerable suffering. He was shipwrecked, imprisoned, persecuted, beset by personal torments, and probably suffered blindness too. One explanation of his ‘third heaven’ account is that it may have been one of those experiences at the moment of final despair.

Another interesting historical account is from the life of John Bunyan. I was once intrigued by the life of this man, a copper smith in pre-Industrial Revolution England. It is reported that he was physically unattractive, quite ugly in fact. He carried a heavy anvil tied to his back with ropes, eking out a living as he went from place to place. John Bunyan led a life of great hardship and very little worldly achievement and yet reports in his writings great moments of spiritual joy. The anvil has been preserved in a church in England where there is also a stained glass window depicting John Bunyan on the road. To some art critics the subject of the window might seem quite corny but it moved me to tears when I first saw it. It shows the heavy ropes breaking and the weight of the anvil falling from his back as he first leapt to that wonderful moment of spiritual freedom. It moved me so much because it so closely depicted a part of my own experience. I’m sure the happiness John Bunyan reported is an example of the Universe opening up and showing us the potentialities.

Interestingly too, both St. Paul and John Bunyan are examples of people who did not let the glimpse of happiness slip from their sight. They held the glimpse before them and pursued it for the rest of their lives. Maybe we can copy their example.

In our quest to create happiness intentionally, it is necessary to spend some time looking at the other side of the coin. We need to look at the questions: What is unhappiness? What makes us unhappy? What were the features in our lives when we experienced unhappiness? The purpose of looking at this other side of the coin is not to go back and wallow in the unhappiness we had, nor to engage in negativity. The purpose is to be able to identify what we want to avoid. Surely an action plan to create happiness intentionally needs to comprise several major strands: the things we need to do to avoid unhappiness and the things we need to do to create happiness.

Towards the end of my last book, ‘Switch On To Your Inner Strength’, I asked the question: “Where to from here?” and made the following suggestions:

It is very important to use your inner strength in a deliberate manner rather than by accident.

It is very important to develop a routine of daily meditation.

It is very important to be clear about what is your life’s purpose now and what goals you need to achieve to fulfil this purpose.

It is very important that you clearly identify your values and having done this, to make sure that your values support your goals.

If, in this whole process of meditation, you find that there is a conflict between your ‘life’s purpose now’, your goals and your values, then you must be prepared to change one of these to bring them into alignment. Something’s got to change.

It is important to establish a hierarchy of purpose. It would seem to me that discovering your life’s purpose now is at the top of the hierarchy. Goals and values are the ways in which you pursue your purpose. They must all be pointed in the same direction.

Purpose, goals and values in alignment – that’s what this book is all about. And I believe we can create happiness intentionally by finding out what our purpose is and following it. In order to liberate ourselves to follow our purpose it is essential to examine deeply the values underpinning our lives. We’ve got to stop still for a moment in the rush of everyday life to look at our belief systems.

There is a Chinese word ‘Chi’ which deals with the concept of achieving peace by harmonising the work in all areas of your life. At the simplest level this involves harmonising the goals we are working towards with the value system we hold. There can be no harmony if our value system is in discord with our objectives.

Though the word Chi itself might be Chinese, the concept is by no means exclusively Chinese. It occurs in all cultures in one form or another. It is certainly deeply rooted in western culture and forms a major pre-occupation of important philosophers such as Aristotle and Aquinas. It’s the basic idea behind the term you hear in business from time to time – Synergy two different parts sharing some common ground and working together to produce a beneficial result. How many lives would be more fruitful and fulfilling if this simple concept of alignment of goals and values was followed? How many lives are led in complete frustration because people are perpetually divided in their attention, constantly fighting with themselves over what they want to do? How many lives are led, from start to finish, in mediocrity, boredom and aimlessness for the same reason? How many lives wallow in that limbo of not really being sad, but not really being happy either?

Modern life has done a lot to reduce the direct causes of misery, but has it really made us happy? Probably not. Happiness is in our own hands. It is our own responsibility. This is possibly the key concept of creating happiness intentionally. Happy people are often the ones who choose to be happy and who work at it!

Happy people are often the ones who have chosen a purpose in life, a reason to be here, and are working their way towards the achievement of the purpose on a day by day basis. They are on a journey towards their purpose and gain happiness from the process of being on the journey.

If other people can do it, you can do it too. You can choose to be happy. The bad news is that, in choosing to be happy, you might have to face some conflicts in your life and resolve them. This may present you with considerable hardship. You will have to work at it! The good news is that there are specific techniques, mental tools if you like, to help you in the process. These tools are easily learnt and applied and will be of enormous benefit if you want to Create Happiness Intentionally.

The vital, next stage in the idea of alignment is to go one step further than just aligning your goals and values in the conscious part of your mind. You need to find a process whereby the goals and values in both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind are put in alignment with each other. They need to be ‘synchronised’. A typical example of a mismatch between the goals and values of the conscious mind and the goals and values of the subconscious mind often occurs when a person makes a ‘spur of the moment’ New Year’s resolution.

The ‘spur of the moment’ New Year’s resolution is often made exactly at midnight on New Year’s Eve when everyone at the party is in an exuberant mood and all calling for resolutions to be made. A particular resolution is often chosen because the person making the resolution thinks he ought to do ‘such and such’. So the person is often acting under a sense of obligation to others rather than a true and deep motivation within himself.

An example comes in the New Year’s resolution to reduce weight. A person will often make this resolution on the spur of the moment thinking of all the television advertising he has seen telling him all the logical reasons why he should reduce weight. His wife has been ‘at him’ to lose weight and so, from a sense of obligation, he makes the resolution on the stroke of midnight. But the problem is, it is only really a superficial resolution. He has not paid any attention to delving down into his subconscious mind to find out if this is really what he wants to do and if he is really prepared to pay the price of changing his lifestyle habits. In this, his goals and values may be in conflict. For example he might have goals which result from his sense of obligation to others. These goals may include: the goal of keeping his wife happy, the goal of looking more physically attractive on the beach, and the goal of being able to tie his shoe laces without grunting and puffing. But the problem might be his value system is not really in harmony with his goals. His value system might emphasise the great social value of going and having a few beers with his mates after work every day, or eating out at fine restaurants regularly, or lazing about for several days at a time watching the cricket tests on TV. Such a spur-of-the moment New Year’s Eve resolution is usually doomed to failure because there is no harmony between goals and values and there is no synchronisation between the conscious and the subconscious mind.

If, on the other hand, the New Year’s resolution can be set deeply into the subconscious mind, and if the information in the subconscious mind is in agreement with the conscious mind, there will be a high chance of success for the resolution.

The important part of the process is to get both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind thinking and working in the same direction. It is typical that, when a person uses only the conscious mind to achieve an objective, the person’s actions are characterised by the exercise of strong self discipline and feats of willpower. These concepts of discipline and willpower are only required when one part of the mind has to overcome or dominate the other. Willpower is only required when the conscious mind has to subdue the rebellious tendencies of the subconscious mind.

If you are only working with willpower to achieve a goal, forcing yourself, and relying on an agony of self control, discipline and constant rejection of temptation, you are likely to fail in the long run. This is because the idea of using willpower is an idea of using only the conscious mind. You could call the idea of willpower alone, ‘conscious mind imperialism’ where your aim is to use the power of the conscious mind to overrule and subjugate the desires and prompting of the subconscious mind. Willpower alone can not work because the subconscious mind will resist it. What will the subconscious mind do when faced with a conflict of the conscious and subconscious mind? It will identify a change and change is scary. It may set up self sabotage.

By trying to use pure willpower the subconscious mind is not going to help you at all, it’s actually going to work against you. That’s the way it works.

So what do we need to do? We can use the subconscious mind to make it easier to change. We can actually achieve the change inside the subconscious mind first. Once this is done there will be no need to exercise strong willpower because there will be no need to subjugate the desire of the subconscious mind. We need to achieve the change using the subconscious mind techniques. Loosely I’m talking about the CALM techniques. One fantastic fact that really helps us is that the subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. What we can do is pretend achievement (if that’s the goal) and the subconscious mind still helps.

These techniques will allow you to make the change inside the subconscious mind first. So, when the subconscious mind, the 88% part of the mind, has accepted the change, it is going to work along with you instead of sabotaging you. That’s when you have a much greater chance to make things happen for you the conscious mind and the subconscious mind working 100% together. That’s our objective and that’s when you will start to achieve your intended purposes.