Get Happy

Is happiness worth pursuing?

Is happiness worth pursuing? Well gosh, if that's not worth pursuing, what is worth pursuing? That would be my response. If you can't pursue happiness, what the hell can you pursue? Because what are you going to pursue, unhappinesss? Spend your whole day trying to create drama in your life? I know people that do that, but good Lord, they lead miserable lives. Absolutely, I think happiness is the one thing worth pursuing.

What are the essential ingredients of happiness?

I think that accomplishing everything that you want brings happiness and if you want to wake up and buy a car, you go buy a car. If that makes you happy, bang. That is an essential ingredient. If you wake up and you want to eat a banana, eat a banana. Bang, you are happy. In the larger sense, if you want to be president and that will make you happy, god forbid. You become president and you are happy. The essential ingredient in happiness is just getting the thing you want. Whether it even be, you see a beautiful sunset. You did not even know you wanted it. But you see it and aesthetically you are pleased. You are happy. You have fulfilled this desire to be happy that you did not even know you had. You are happy.

What gets in the way of happiness?

I think people interfere with their own happiness. I think people sabotage themselves a lot of times because for whatever reason they don't think they deserve to be happy or they don't think that they're ready for it. Maybe they're really not. Maybe they don't know how to handle it. I know a lot of people who feed off of stress and unhappiness. And they've gotten it twisted around to that's how life should be lead. And I think that, everyone sets their own obstacles against it. Because really achieving happiness is not that hard. Achieving lasting happiness maybe is, achieving some of your most strident dreams is very difficult. But happiness as a concept is not difficult to achieve.

What mistakes do people make in trying to attain happiness?

I see a lot of people making mistakes in trying to get happiness by either not knowing what they want or not believing in themselves; not believing that they deserve happiness; people who think that its someone else's fault that they're not happy, I think is a big one, I see a lot of that; people who refuse to accept responsibility for their own unhappiness; if you come to me and you say "oh well, you know, my wife is nagging me, she's making me really unhappy...I don't know what to do!"...well, it's simple, you have to go to work something out with your wife; either you need to go to her and say, look, we're not happy, I'm not happy with this, can we work to change this, and then accomplish that? Or...leave her. Sorry, it's Draconian and mean, but if she's not making you happy and you're not making her happy, maybe you two weren't meant to be together and you need to go do something else. It's that kind of self sabotage where people want to put the onus to work towards that change on someone else; that more than something else is going to sabotage you; you're responsible for your own life, you're responsible for your own happiness; affect that change.

Why are some people chronically unhappy?

I think some people are chronically unhappy because there is a chemical unbalance. I definitely believe that some people chemically are unable to be as happy as others. And I think some people are perhaps genetically predisposed to just not being able to be happy. Some people, the environment which they are raised taught them certain context of life; this is the way life should be. So they live in that, that's their world view. So, that keeps them from being happy.

Does complaining help or hurt the quest for happiness?

I don't think that talking or complaining about your problems hurst your quest for Happiness per se. But I don't necessarily believe that it helps. I don't think that bitching about something necessarily is going to help you. I think it's not a bad thing. I think for some people, by having that catharsis, or having that release, can be in it's own way helpful. I think something that is more helpful is having a conversation about it. Actually talking about it with somebody. With somebody, not to somebody. So, for instance, if someone were to come in and say I'm having a problem with my wife, the first thing that I would say is, "Tell me about it." And I'd listen to them. If they kept going, at some point I'd want to start asking them questions about it. I'd want to start getting into the conversation and really figuring out where it comes from, what's going on with them and hopefully, you know, best case scenario, they can look at themselves through my eyes or I can hellp them see their own context, and maybe that would help them in the sense that they would get a new perspective on it. So that could open them up. But I think if they're just talking to me, they're telling me stuff they already know. And I think that unless they can move out of that, it's not helpful.