"Happily Ever After"

What's in Your Head?

“The secrets to happiness are all in your head, not just because they're attitudes, but because they're truths we learned at some point but have either overlooked or forgotten.”

                     Stephen M. Pollan & Mark Levine (It's All in Your Head)

Pollan and Levine's little book, It's All in Your Head, is kinda like that commercial where the woman smacks her head when she remembers she could have had a V-8. It's rooted in common sense so lacking today. They compare our modern doldrums to the Wizard of Oz characters who went on a long adventure to find things they already had—for Lion, it was courage, for Scarecrow, a brain, and for Tin Man, a heart. Dorothy just wanted to get back to Kansas. She wore ruby red slippers through the whole story, not realizing all she had to do was click her heels and say, “There's no place like home,” and be instantly transported there. We have everything we need to be happy, we've just forgotten how to use it.

Pollen and Levine list several reasons we feel dissatisfied with our lot in life. 1) We measure ourselves against others. No matter how successful we are, we can always find someone who is or has more than we do, and that's one to whom we compare ourselves. 2) We're pessimistic about the future; usually because our expectation is unrealistic in the first place. Viewing the passage of time as a negative guarantees that we will face it with fear. 3) We are our own worst enemies in that we think and say critical things about ourselves daily that ensure low self-esteem. 4) We think needing and asking for help is a sign of weakness. In this country settled by pioneers and self-made men, we learn early and well that “you did that all by yourself!” is high praise. Our rugged individualism is shooting us in the foot. Everyone needs help sometime. 5) We wait for the best time or the right time before making decisions because we're afraid of failing. Delayed action ensures delayed satisfaction. 6) We think we can have everything. In fact, we've been taught to expect to have it all. This may be a product of the freedoms we enjoy in America—but our time and our finances are typically not limitless. Most of us will need to make compromises; give up some things in order to have others, rather than have it all (whatever that means!) 7) We spend too much time worrying about the past and dreaming about the future. In all that worrying and dreaming, we miss what is right before our faces.

Accepting oneself right here, right now is the first step toward a meaningful life. “Happily ever after” happens only in fairy tales. We can be happy some of the time, satisfied most of the time, and serene all of the time if we embrace life on its own terms.

                                                  In the spirit,

                                                    Jane