How to Live a Happy Life? 15 Lessons My Life Taught Me
Who doesn’t want to live a happy life? I have learnt the following lessons, not in any particular order, from my life and those around me to live a happy life.
Photo by Elisabeth Wales on Unsplash
1. Be Healthy
I have put health at the top. Let me stress again; if you are not in good health, it is tough to lead a happy life. Forget about any significant health issue; even if you have a minor problem like headache or flu, you can’t enjoy anything as long as you have that issue. Being healthy and staying healthy is a lifelong journey — you need to adopt good habits and stick with these all your life. The list includes (but is not limited to)
1. Be physically active, at least 150–300 minutes a week
2. Meditate for mental health
3. Eat natural, unprocessed and mostly vegetarian food
4. Don’t be obese or overweight
5. Don’t smoke
6. Avoid drinking alcohol or keep it to the minimum
7. Sleep well
For details, please check “How to Stay Healthy?” Making changes to physical activity, food, alcohol consumption, etc., is not easy — it needs a lifestyle change. See Lifestyle Changes for Health for more information.
2. Have Enough Money, Not Too Much
In my Hindi book in grade 6 or 7, I read the following lines written by an Indian poet Kabir Das in the 15th century.
“साईं इतना दीजिये, जा में कुटुम समाये
मैं भी भूखा न रहूँ, साधू न भूखा जाए”
“Oh Lord, give me enough for my family needs
and for the guests that come to my door.”
These lines are still relevant today. We need enough money for day-to-day needs (food, shelter, clothes, transportation, electricity, heating gas, etc.) for ourselves as well as our dependents. We also need money to entertain guests who might visit us. We might also need money for other needs like the car(s), education for self/dependents, vacations and emergencies. If you don’t have enough money to pay the bills, you will be under stress most of the time, which might also affect your health, and you can’t be happy in that situation. So, to be happy, it is essential that you and your partner (if you have one) earn more money than your needs. If you spend more money than you make, you will incur debts which will affect your happiness, for sure.
If your expenses are more than your income, the only way to fix that is by increasing the income or reducing your expenses. If you have included your “wants” in your expenses, you can quickly resolve the situation by getting rid of the “wants.” I hope you know what I mean by wants — that new car when the current one is working fine, new clothes, bigger home, eating out in restaurants every now and then, going on vacation, buying a boat or cottage, etc. are wants. If you don’t have money, taking debts to cater to your wants is not going to make you happy. I have learnt from my experience that we become happy when we decide to get something new or have just got it. For example, when you go to a showroom to buy a new car, you feel happy. You also feel so glad for a few days after you get the new car; however, then the happiness disappears. You experience the same when you buy a new house or go on vacation. Perhaps, we should not look for joy in possessions!
These days, the economic situation is such that you can’t be sure that tomorrow you will have the job that you hold today. The situation becomes even worse if you can’t cut your fixed expenses, e.g. mortgage payment for the home loan, property tax, utility bills, etc. The best option to handle this kind of situation is to be financially healthy by saving a fixed percentage of your income from every pay cheque. The rate of your pay you save depends on your situation. However, it could be anywhere from 10% to 25%, or even higher, if you can make it. I hope that you have heard, “Pay yourself first.” That is, before you spend any money from your paycheque, put aside the money you want to save in a separate savings account. You could give your bank a standing instruction to do this automatically for you.
While having some money secured for emergencies or future needs will give you peace of mind, what if you still want to take care of all your wants by earning more money? Often, to make more money, you will need to put in more hours or take another job in the evening or weekend. This will get you more money, however, you will also get stress as a byproduct. Is that stress really worth getting a bigger home that you don’t get time to live in and enjoy?
Sometimes, earning more money, moving higher in the company itself becomes the need or addiction, even if one doesn’t need the extra cash. We want to make more and more money at any cost, even at the expense of health and neglecting our family. When we start getting more money, our needs and wants start expanding to eat up the extra cash. Even if we don’t blow up the extra cash, it is just a number in the bank account, worth nothing that we accumulated at the cost of our health, family and happiness.
“Oh Lord, give me enough for my family needs
and for the guests that come to my door.”
3. Don’t Compare Yourself with Others
When you compare yourself with others, you usually do so with those who are higher than you, e.g. richer than you, have a bigger home or a fancier car, are higher in the corporate world, more beautiful or even have a fairer skin. Obviously, when you compare yourself with those people, it is bound to make you unhappy.
First, the grass is always greener on the other side. You don’t know if the other person has bought the fancier car or gone on vacation on borrowed money that he is stressed out to repay that money. Besides, if your vehicle is running fine, why do you need to buy a new car just because your brother or neighbour has purchased a new car? Fingerprints of each person in the world are unique; therefore how can people, even if they are twins, have the same living standards? Communists tried to make all citizens have the same living standards and have failed. The world is not fair to everyone, and some people are either lucky or have unfair advantages due to their family, culture, race or even skin colour. These people become more “successful” or prosperous, however, if you have enough for your needs, why should it bother you or make you unhappy if the other person has more than you?
4. Don’t Try to Be Perfect
If you try to be perfect and expect everything around you to be perfect, you are going to make yourself and those around you unhappy. You live in a home, not in a museum, so it can’t be clean or organized all the time. If you have children in your home and you expect them not to jump on the sofa or bed, or put all their toys back after playing, that will not happen, and it will make you (and those around you) unhappy. We are humans, not God, so we are bound to make mistakes, lose temper or forget a necessary appointment once in a while. If you try to be perfect, you will always be worried or stressed that you should not make mistakes, and you will be unhappy most of the time. Nothing is ideal in this world, and nor should you try to be!
5. Don’t Follow Society Blindly
We live in a society and I agree that we should follow the general rules and regulations of the community, however we need not follow the club blindly. For example, if your friends or relatives go on an out of country vacation twice a year, you don’t have to do that. Instead, you may go camping in your province or explore your country. Similarly, if your neighbour changes his car or buys a new home every 3 years, you don’t have to do that. Just because your colleagues go to watch a hockey or football game in the stadium every Friday, you don’t have to do that. You may, instead, watch the game on TV with your family or watch something else or read a book, if you are not interested in sports.
Your spouse, children, friends and boss may sometimes want you to do certain things which you may not like to do or are beyond your capabilities. In that situation, it is perfectly okay to say no, politely. You can’t please everyone all the time. If you give in to society’s pressure, you will become frustrated and unhappy.
6. Do What You Love
If you do what you love, you will be happy. On the other hand, if you don’t like or hate the work you do at your workplace, you can’t be satisfied at work, and you will end up carrying that unhappiness to your home. In that situation, the best option is to look for the work that you like. Alternatively, change your outlook and start enjoying your job.
7. Limit Your Expectations
Don’t have much expectations from others, particularly from those who are close to you, because when those expectations are not met, it will make you unhappy. You expect your partner to give you expensive gifts, take you to restaurants three times a week, give you a new car on your next birthday, take you on vacation every summer, and so on, and when that does not happen, you feel sad. On the other hand, if you don’t have any expectations for the vacation, you will feel okay even when there is no vacation, however, you might be delighted when your partner asks you if you would be interested in going on a vacation this year.
8. Help Others
When you do any act for others, particularly strangers, with no expectations, it will give you the feeling of happiness. You don’t need to do anything huge to get that feeling; it could be as small as holding the door for someone, smiling to a stranger or wishing good morning to a fellow passenger on the subway. Or, you may help the local charity with money or time. When you help others, it gives a sense of belonging to the community and a sense of purpose, thus you feel good and happy. Also, when you help others, you start comparing yourself with those who are less fortunate than you, rather than those who are more prosperous and more lucky than you, which in turn makes you happy.
9. Stop Complaining — Be Grateful
Have you noticed that the more we have, the more we complain? We might be travelling in an air-conditioned car, yet complain about hot weather. Today the weather is 24 degrees Celsius, it is perfect, but tomorrow when the temperature rises to 26 or 27 degrees Celsius, people start complaining, “Oh! It is too hot!” We don’t think about people living in developing countries at 45 degrees Celsius with no air-conditioning!
When I moved to Canada in 1997 and asked my colleagues, “How are you?”; the typical answer I got was, “Not bad” or “Not too bad.” Don’t you see that we have become habitual to complain about just anything. In response to, “How are you?”, why can’t we reply with a smile, “I am good” or “I am great!”
Instead of complaining, we should be grateful for what we have, as millions of people may not have a fraction of what people in the developed world have. According to the World Bank, 10% of the world population lives on less than $1.9 a day. These people have minimal access to food, clean water, sanitation, health and education. So, if instead of complaining all the time, we become grateful for what we have, our life will automatically become happy!
10. Be Willing to Compromise
The world around you, at your home or workplace, does not operate as per your wish. People will always have opinions that may be different from yours, whether at work or home. Don’t be so rigid that it is either my way or highway. You should be willing to listen to others’ opinions and willing to compromise. Compromise is a kind of “giving” that makes both you and the other person happy.
11. Forgive and Forget
Our brain has a fantastic capability — it can forget memories. When we say, “Time is a great healer”, it means that a painful situation becomes less painful as the time passes. This happens because our brain has the capability to forget memories, good as well as bad, provided we let it forget. The brain starts forgetting memories when we don’t refresh them. To put it in perspective, you remember the phone numbers or passwords that you use frequently, however, you start forgetting those that you use occasionally. It works exactly the same for other memories. If someone said or did something unpleasant that hurt you, it might make you unhappy for sometime. Now, if you keep revisiting that incident, it will continue to make you sad. On the other hand, if you forget that incident, it won’t make you unhappy anymore. I understand that it may be difficult to forget that incident, that is where the power of forgiveness helps. When you really forgive someone from the bottom of your heart, that incident can’t give you pain or unhappiness anymore, and soon you will forget that incident. Notice that it does not matter whether that person has asked for forgiveness or not, once you forgive the person, your pain and unhappiness will start disappearing. So, to be happy, adopt the “Forgive and Forget” policy.
12. Develop Hobbies and have a Me Time
Develop hobbies that you love. Sometimes, it may not be possible to love your job, however you can always have hobbies that you love. Hobbies that are connected to nature or create something definitely have the power to make us happy. My favourite hobby is gardening. It gives peace and happiness when you watch a seed turn into a seedling, then into a tiny plant and finally into an entire grown plant with beautiful flowers; all this in a matter of weeks, as if you are watching a baby grow! Singing, playing a musical instrument, listening to music, drawing, art, acting, cooking, reading, sports — the list is endless — are great hobbies. You pick up any hobby that you love and nourish it, and it is bound to give you happiness. And remember that these hobbies will be of great help and source of joy when you retire!
Try to have some “Me Time” every day when you do only what you love, whether it is reading a book, watching TV, perusing a hobby, taking a nap, or just relaxing on a chair doing nothing. “Me Time” will help you to relax, recharge and be happy.
13. Get a Partner and/or Pet
When two people like each other, they are usually happier than those who live alone. If you have a rough day at work, your partner can cheer you up and help you forget what happened at work. You can also do activities together with your partner. Living with a partner also helps strengthen your financial position as the partner may bring in income or otherwise help take care of home and children.
Pets can also help you become happy as you won’t be lonely in your home. Pets will also help you become fit as taking care of pets needs physical activities, mainly if your pet is a dog.
14. Limit Social Media
Have you noticed that all your friends on Facebook and other social media sites usually post only happy moments, i.e. when they go on vacation, buy a new car or home, celebrate birthdays, and so on? On seeing all those happy moments activities on social media, you get a kind of social pressure to follow the same, and if you are unable to do so, you become unhappy. Therefore, if you isolate yourself from social media, what is happening in the lives of your Facebook friends will not make you sad. Instead of having 100 or 200 Facebook friends, have a few real friends and enjoy their company, and you will feel happy.
15. Some Things are not in Your Control
Some things are not in your control, or let me make it more forceful, “Most important things that happen in your life are not in your control.” You feel that you have everything lined up — a steady job, a great partner, a beautiful home and great kids. Well, that is today, however, you don’t know what will happen tomorrow — the pandemic arrives out of the blue moon, and your life goes upside down. Or, suddenly, you or your partner may be diagnosed with a severe disease, or maybe involved in an accident. And you ask, “Why me?”
Just like the weather, a lot that happens in our life is unpredictable. You may be physically active, not overweight and eat the right kind of food and yet get cancer. You may be the best driver on the road, yet involved in a road accident that may put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. You may be the best worker, yet you may be fired. Or, two hours before your marriage, your fiance calls and informs that she is backing out. When something happens in our life that makes no sense or has no explanation, to be happy, it is best to not waste our energy on finding answers; rather accept it and move on.
Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Verse 47
“कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि”
“You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction.”
Besides your actions, a lot of other factors, such as the efforts of others, environment, place, situation, destiny, cumulative karmas of the people involved, and so on, affect the outcome (fruits of actions). So to be happy, we should continue to do the best that is in our control without worrying about the results, as it may not be according to our expectations. Let’s put it another way — live in the present moment, which alone is in your control; the past can’t be changed and the future is unknown!
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