In honor of International Day of Happiness on March 20th, I invite you to take two minutes to do a simple experiment:
- Take a mental note of how you are feeling right now. Just notice it without doing anything else.
- Now, just like Peter Pan trying to fly, think of a happy thought (your kids, vacation, having a bikini bod, whatever)
- Notice how you are feeling while that thought is present.
While I don’t anticipate anyone was able to take flight, I am confident that while thinking a happy thought, you felt happy. This is due to the simple, profound fact that our feelings, including happiness, are always an inside job, 100% of the time. There is zero connection between what is going on around us and how we feel.
I know this sounds absurd. Whenever I make this assertion, I imagine Aristotle sharing his theory of a round Earth. However, I feel like I must voice this fact. I think it’s profoundly helpful for kids, adults, and potentially for humanity. When what we see in the world is so jarring and often traumatizing, it is profoundly helpful to know that – amid it – we can find our wellbeing.
I witnessed this first-hand in Gaza and we continue to witness it in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. I was amazed at how people could be so civilized despite such uncivilized circumstances. It was clear there was an innate capacity to not become the product of one’s environment, a resiliency. A bullet proof capacity to touch and live in your own wellbeing.
The source – the fountain from which – happiness and wellbeing flow is within, not without. Trying to obtain a certain set of life circumstances to be happy is futile, simply because it doesn’t work that way. And this is great news. Because it means that we can find happiness in any circumstance.
This is incredibly liberating. Hundreds of kids’ lives have been transformed by knowing the source of happiness. Knowing that other people can’t inject feelings into you has liberated them from bullying, anxiety, depression, suicide ideation, etc. It is a key piece of knowledge that if widely understood, would cause us to turn a corner on our mental health crisis.
As always, don’t take my word for it. Try the experiment again during your daily life. Test it out, perhaps you’ll take flight!