Did you know that even spicy foods can make you happy! They say it’s because the body cannot distinguish between spiciness and the peppery pain, and pain releases endorphins in the brain which register as pure happiness. For quite a few it wouldn’t mean anything except tears and sweat. But wait till the “Pepper High Effect” burns you enough to feel Hot, Happy, and Healthy! You just need to build up your tolerance to ’scoville ferocity’.

Like many, I couldn’t do it either; perhaps I didn’t need it after all (whatever lies I tell myself!).

Two or more years ago, I jinxed myself;

I had been telling around that I know how to carry-off happiness for me out of a wet paper bag if needed (whatever that was supposed to mean), had no problem with changing choices and felt I was on my way (wherever that might be, I was certain it was a good place).

And then…unprepared for;

I realized I had never actually made any headway with my flight of fancy. I had conned myself with some fake beliefs. The deceit was blinding!

What does that mean? Where I went wrong with the “Happy question”? I needed to find out.

I knew the answer wasn’t quite that simple. It’s a rare bird that nests distantly or distinctly from person to person, moment to moment, and breath to breath. What’s exciting today might hurt tomorrow. So, I tried mimicking facial exercises to pick up the mood; “Rest your face five seconds, now let’s do it again five times… smile, smile, Smile, smile, smile!” Geez…It was miserable. I just couldn’t do it.

Hang in there a moment. I wasn’t ready to give up on me.

I didn’t know if it was Ok to believe happiness to be a choice. What if I were to change my ways? Would that leave me content for the rest of my life?Truth is, like everybody I didn’t have the slightest idea about the whole thing. Not altogether. Not 100 %.

Yet there are people who are happy and others aren’t. What brings the difference? Is happiness actually a lifetime option? What’s there to be like Jeanne Louise Calment, a perky, jaunty happy soul who fiercely loved chocolate and ate nearly 2 lbs of it every week? Active as she ever was, she had taken up fencing at 85 and was riding bicycles at 100! She even went on to star in ‘Vincent and Me’ in 1990 when she was 104! She smoked until 120 and quit smoking only when she could no longer find her cigarette box. “Until next year perhaps?” She would say goodbye to the people who frequented her. “I don’t see why not! You don’t look so bad to me.”; a fond response would never fail to enthuse her. A twinkle in the eye and a subtle grin would momentarily give away her contentment. She stayed witty right until the end came in 1977. She was 122 then!

What was then that kept her going so strongly even at such a ripe age?

Nothing would make us happy unless we choose to

Whenever I fell into the rut of sadness, each time I would hear one single idea– three ways; that we have the option to choose happiness, that it would lead me straight back to my natural state of daily joy and that I’d be out of my jinx box in no time! It was difficult to face a crazy argument that wasn’t real but felt revolutionary. I didn’t need to let my story of unhappiness hold power over me.

Weeks later, I chanced to hit a thread on Reddit. It went like this;

“Think of your thoughts like the weather; as if they were passing clouds. Weather doesn’t have meaning; sometimes you get storm clouds and sometimes clear skies.”

I guess what did it do to me was happily shocking and surprising!

It shattered the pall of gloom around me and helped me rise into happiness. In a simpler way- the melancholy was not serving or doing me any good. It needed to be junked. And for once “I didn’t need an excuse to be happy!”

Don’t wait to simplify life!

For years altogether I have tried to break free of my individual unhappiness. Not much of a success there. I would still be angry about my deprived childhood and resent 30 odd years of surviving a deadwood career. In any case, it always reeked of some kind of heresy as I’d often find arguing with myself; “What!—how could I to just ‘snap out of’ this straight jacket numbness that is stuck with me since forever?”

I don’t believe miracles happen, at least not that quickly but yes- I did get it right finally. It had occurred to me that few roads to happiness just do not lead through Oxytocin or Endorphin. The one and only truth that matters is that ‘If you’re not happy, you can choose to be’. Pick up an enduring will, wake up some rugged determination and you’ll get better and feel lofty.

Neither do you have to be any good at DIY to get going. Happiness does not demand some external event, an accomplishment, a win, a pat on the head, a struggle or any reason at all. For all I know, you can simply choose to be happy from this moment onwards; for no reason other than that you’re the most knotty life form, have confusingly interrelated parts- that‘ve somehow come together- live in most exciting times and are going around an ever exploding ball of hydrogen at 107000 kmph all the while sitting on an enormous chunk of rock and lava.

Take that in. Don’t wait and…for once keep biology out of it!Nothing is more dispiriting than the burden of unhappiness due to air and appearance you carry. 

So start loving somebody; get mushy and if you’re in love, take time right now to reveal. Open your heart before it stops. Even a small touch, massage, hug, hand holding or a handshake works well.  

It’s a hard one on you if you have ‘no love’ or ‘little something’ to hang on to, but self-love is just as good a fill-in. It shuts out everyone else except YOU to care for. Eventually fondness, generosity and a warm heart would fill your day. Give an unexpected gift, buy a stranger Coffee, rummage your pocket and throw change in that ‘unfortunate’ hat, or laud and pay a compliment. When you do small favors, fuzzy feelings begin to flood your veins and Oxytocin will flow.

Besides, who would want to live as “Janitor of a Mountain of BS” (quoting Tim Ferriss) for 50 straight years only to resign to a couch in the corner and drag through the idyllic Golden Years? I would rather not wait for mermaids to spoon-feed me bran flakes and let each day bring me a new jumper! Should I? Nope …no way, the idea has run out of gas for me. The fantasy that I do X to be happy has fallen behind.

Honestly, I believe that you don’t need to hang on to outcomes for your happiness. If you do, it will be Ok for a minute, a month or perhaps longer but sooner than later you’ll be haunted by the next unreal emptiness in your life.

Don’t hold back; the world has not shrunk yet. You need to choose NOW!