- How do you move towards happiness
no matter what's going on around you?
(upbeat music)
I talked about that happiness,
I used to think was the absence of fear,
the absence of sadness, the absence of stress,
that when I'm carefree, I feel happy,
and then I got to a place in adulthood
where I'm almost never carefree.
There's almost always something that is a stressor,
or something to be worried about,
or something to be taken care of,
or something that's gone wrong,
or something that is not what I hoped it would be,
or something that's disappointing,
and that if I waited for the absence of those,
quote-unquote, negative emotions,
if I waited for the absence of those to be happy,
I would not be happy, and I'd just be miserable.
And so I do consider myself a happy person.
I don't consider myself a naively optimistic person,
I consider myself a strategically optimistic person.
I've been thinking a lot lately about,
I have a new favorite movie, some of you may have seen it,
It's called "Everything Everywhere All at Once,"
and there's a moment in this film
where the husband who the wife has seen
as naively optimistic, and stupidly positive, and bland,
and boring, kind of reveals his approach to life,
and just how much pain, and sadness,
and stress he carries, and fear he carries.
When I choose to see the good in things,
"I'm not being naive," he says
"It's strategic and necessary.
This is how I've survived everything."
And he talks about being kind, you know,
especially when we don't know what's going on
how crucial it is that we be kind to one another,
and he says, "I know that you see yourself as a fighter."
He says, "Well, so do I."
He says, "This is how I fight."
I used to think happiness was the experience of sweetness,
and now I realize it's the bitter sweetness
that none of us escapes sorrow, or hardship,
or grief, or stress in our lives (sobs).
We all wrestle with insecurity.
We all wrestle with despair.
We all wrestle with anger.
Different times that being optimistic,
a cynic would see an optimist and say,
"What an idiot (laughs),
don't they know what's going on in the world.
Don't they know what life is like."
Or "If you're happy, you must have it easy.
You must live a life of ease and privilege,
otherwise you would be miserable like me."
And what I love about that scene
in that film is happiness is a choice.
I realized recently I've been going through some things,
and I have been pretty miserable.
And I felt like I was losing myself
because I've always seen myself as a happy person.
And I had the realization
that happiness really was a choice.
I used to should on myself a lot.
You should do this.
You should do that.
You should listen to audio books, nonfiction audio books,
and improve yourself as a person,
you know, and lately I'd been like, no,
I'm gonna listen to my music in the car,
because to me, that's meditation.
To me, that's clearing away all the crap
and finding something that brings me some joy.
I didn't exercise as much lately.
I've been getting a lot more exercise,
less because I care about how I look in a swimsuit,
more because it helps me to feel happy.
I play with my kids more
because playing with my kids helps them to feel happy,
and it helps me to feel happy (sighs).
How do you find happiness?
How do you, you create it.
You create it through your behaviors,
you create it through your choices,
and we need to not confuse vice with happiness.
We engage in vice, which is a pleasurable activity
that harms us psychologically, emotionally, or physically.
We engage in vice because we are anxious,
we're depressed, we're overwhelmed, we're afraid,
we engage advice to escape all of that,
but it inevitably makes it worse.
So for me, happiness is healthy replacements, right?
what helps me to de-stress,
what helps me to not feel afraid,
what helps me to manage my sadness
but then doesn't end up making me feel worse,
and so for me, it also looks like,
I haven't cut off junk food,
but I have a new rule,
which is that if I'm gonna eat something bad for me,
it better be amazing, you know?
There's nothing worse than eating something bad for you,
and then it wasn't even that good (laughs).
You just hate yourself, you're like, that was a waste,
whereas if you get something
that is just decadent,
and you know,
it really hits the spot, you're like that was worth it.
I have zero regrets about that,
like Peeps, you ever eat Peeps?
Peeps are disgusting.
Like why would we do this to ourselves?
And then you start and you cannot stop.
Happiness is also about your attitude
and how you perceive things.
Alicia likes to quote a book that she likes
called "The Obstacle Is The Way"
that everything, every hardship can be perceived
as an obstacle, or as the way towards growth,
and I've gotten into the habit lately
of practicing gratitude, not just for the good things,
but for the things that suck.,
Because the things that suck help me
to be more compassionate.
The things that suck usually suck,
because they are bumping up against a weakness of mine,
and in order for the experience to suck less,
I have to turn that weakness into a strength,
and that is hard, and that is uncomfortable,
and I'm grateful for those thing,
because they make me who I am.
practicing gratitude, practicing a positive perspective,
practicing the power of thinking positively,
and seeing everything, even loss,
a breakup, or a death, or getting fired,
or getting rejected, or failing at something
as an opportunity to learn,
and grow, and become a better version of you
is so much better than I don't deserve this,
there is no meaning to this, there's no purpose to this.
You just get into the void of hopelessness.
Happiness is a choice, it comes down to attitude,
it comes down to how you choose to perceive things,
it comes to down to how you respond to things,
and it comes down to recognizing
that to experience happiness,
you have to experience sorrow,
and oftentimes you experience them at the same time.
That I choose to be happy even when I'm unhappy,
sounds paradoxical, but this is the way (laughs).
So I hope that you found this helpful
and that you'll continue to join us
as we learn about our emotions,
how to move towards the positive ones
and through the negative ones.
Thank you very much.
(upbeat music)