Up until a month ago, I would explain what I was doing on sabbatical by telling people something like “Well, I’m going to the gym, and then besides that I’m mostly doing fun creative projects like writing, drawing, and playing the drums.” Because that’s what I did. For the past few months, from Feb thru May, all I focused on was getting into a rhythm again of Doing Stuff that I enjoy.

I’ve also written previously about developing more self-love, and running that as a background process in my awareness. And that’s still happening too, though it’s hard to know what exactly is going on under the hood and even harder to gauge progress. Mostly it’s been a lot of watching youtube videos, practicing metta meditation, introspecting, and writing.

And now to continue the pattern on this sabbatical of changing course every few months, it feels like time for another shift. Now I’ve started telling people that “I’m learning how to be happy”. (Admittedly I’m being intentionally cheeky and provocative here, but it also feels accurate.) Because really that’s getting closer to the root of this journey I’ve been on.

I had the high-paying job. I had the career. I had the friends, and the hobbies. But I still felt like something was missing. I took a sabbatical and pursued my interests. But I still felt like something was missing. Where was the contentment? Where was the peace?

After many OODA loops, it looks like “learning how to be happy” is the next direction I’m oriented in. It’s time to do some studying.

To start, I want this post to be a snapshot of my thoughts today. (Which is tricky because even as I’m writing this post over the course of the week, I’m also looking into new ideas and my thoughts are evolving.) These notes are going to be very rough around the edges, and really only grasping at the ideas I want to convey. Also, I suspect I am wrong about a lot of things right now and will continue to be wrong about a lot of things. But that’s half the fun of writing these things down, ya’know?

Below is a loosely connected web of my thoughts on happiness and contentment. I’m looking forward to revisiting this post in the coming months and years.

• Financial stability
• Taking care of yourself
• Default scripts
• Introspection
• Self-Esteem, Self-Worth, Self-Love
• Reality, and what’s in your control
• Being in the present
• Relationships and Community
• Thinking about Death

Financial stability

There’s something here around having “enough”, firstly to not be viscerally stressed about your imminent survival.

Then to have the security and space to be able to take a step back from the rat race, even for just a brief second, and start to consider the meta question of “what is it that I’m really doing?”. Early stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and all that.

Taking care of yourself

Whatever this means to you.

Take out the trash. Do the dishes. Clean your room. Eat a little bit healthier. Hit the gym.

There’s something here around self-love, and developing a sensitivity to your needs. Then this lays a foundation for you to level up even further, in order to meet the requirements for the advanced-level quests and glorious purpose you so yearn for… or something.

Default scripts

These are things society and culture tell us we should want/do and then we’ll be happy.

Go to school → get a job → buy a car → buy a house / start a family → save to send your kids to college, etc. → ???

Or maybe: be successful → get rich → buy expensive things or experiences → ???

Go down this path for long enough and I think you eventually run into ideas like The Second Mountain – “I do all these things that are supposed to make me happy, but then I get them and a few months later I feel no different than before. Something’s not right here.”

Introspection

“Happiness comes from within” – yeah, but how?

Topics here that I like thinking about:

• Who am I?
• What do I actually like? What do I actually value?
• What are my motivations for doing the things I do?
• Do I need to have my desires fulfilled in order to be happy?
• What am I afraid of? What am I running from?
• What are biases and trappings that I have that are skewing my perception of reality? e.g.
  • Attachment Theory – am I doing X behaviour out of protection from or avoidance of something? Or is my desire to move toward something healthy?
  • Negative self-talk – what’s the actual source of this, me or someone from my past? How do we dissolve this?

Self-Esteem, Self-Worth, Self-Love

More questions:

• How do I relate to myself?
• Do I keep looking (externally) for more? “I’m sure this next purchase/promotion/relationship will be the one that really fulfills me.”
• Am I enough? Am I good? What is ‘good’?
• At the end of the day, do I still feel like I haven’t done enough?

My current strategy for developing more self-love is though active rewiring of the brain, via:

• Awareness – noticing when I have negative self-talk and challenging it
• Metta meditation – building a keener sense for how loving kindness feels, and how I feel about myself and others

Reality, and what’s in your control

Beware of what is in your control vs out of your control. (What others do is not in your control.)

Beware of thoughts that alter your perception of reality. (See: the parable of the second arrow.)

Also related:

• Comparisons – All you can do is what you can do → what’s actually going on when you get stuck in making comparisons?
• Expectations – the outcome of an action is not actually in our control → what happens if you’re attached to a desired outcome?
• Anxiety – if you act on anxious thoughts, who is actually the one in control?

Being in the present

I’ve become a big fan of the idea that all that exists is the present moment.

And that, for example, our memories of the past are just an abstraction of the mind, and we can only recall the past but we can’t relive those moments. Or that stress, worry, envy, or regret are all just thoughts in the mind that are looking at the past or the future, and the present is not actually impacted by these thoughts if we so choose.

So if the present is the only thing that exists, what do we do?

I like these two ideas:

• Do something today that you’ll feel proud of when you go to bed that night, and then do this again the next day
• Build what you enjoy building, and then eventually do it in community

Relationships and Community

I don’t really have anything novel to say here. Building friendships and community is hard, but having friends and community is lovely. Friends are encouraging, regulating, load-bearing, and people you can serve.

Close friends, who you can talk to without your guard up, are invaluable.

Peers can push you farther than you thought you could go, and open your eyes to perspectives you never would’ve considered.

Here’s this bit that I love from C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves on friendship:

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. … “Here comes one who will augment our loves.” For in this love “to divide is not to take away.” … We possess each friend not less but more as the number of those with whom we share him increases.”

Thinking about Death

Everybody dies. I am going to die one day. You are going to die one day.

I’ve personally found some comfort in thinking about death regularly. Meditating on the impermanence of life reminds me to appreciate life more in the moment.

I’m not sure if this is just a cope or not. I guess the opposite would be feeling uncomfortable about the idea of death, which I think is more harmful than useful. And so if you’re trying to not be afraid of death, then maybe finding gratitude in the impermanence of life is one way to go in that direction.