Happiness Continued...

I must start by saying, if you didn't read last week's blog, STOP! Go back, for this is part 2 of the happiness series and it's imperative to your comprehension of this blog that you first read the last one. That being said, I will continue where I left off!


I often find that one of the most common sayings I ponder is "If I could only _ I'd be so happy." I have used, and been a misguided believer of this, many times. In the blank I have inserted everything as seemingly important as "win this poker tournament" to trivial as "make this green light." More often than not, these prayers don't come true. However, as I have come to notice through experience, this is not the end of the world. Likewise, when these wishes come true, it's doesn't have as lasting of an impression as one might think. All my problems are not suddenly gone because I have won my fair share of poker tournaments. Let me elaborate.



As many of you know, I spent an inordinate amount of time training for a triathlon. I worked with one goal in mind, to complete a sub 3:00:00 triathlon. I worked day in and day out, hired a personal trainer, biked upwards of 100 miles a week, ran 20+, and swam as much as 10. I bought proper equipment, subscribed to magazines, sought out advise from fellow athletes, and put a chunk of my life on hold to attempt what I thought would be one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. I remember doing a study from "4 Hour Work Week" titled "Dreamlines," where one would put several things down that he or she wants to accomplish in the next six months. For example, you could put anything from learn Swahili to becoming a professional chef. He (the author of the book, Timothy Ferris) went on to describe in detail how to go step by step to reach one's goal. The implication was that through doing these things, setting goals, making the necessary time commitment and dedication, one would be a happier person. Well, there's good news and bad news. As always, the bad news first. He was wrong.



For those of you who kept up with the results, I managed to finish the Olympic Triathlon in a time of 2:49:46! Looking back on things I've done, I would say hands down that it's the hardest task I've taken on yet and, along with becoming an Eagle Scout, one of the biggest accomplishments and proudest moments of my life. Crossing the finishing line, I felt a state of euphoria that the most potent dose of Ecstasy couldn't touch. However, like Ecstasy, I had a comedown, although because of the amount of work required to reach my goal, the resulting high was much longer. It lasted several weeks and I was feeling on top of the world. Even when I look back, take a leisure swim, bike or run, I am reminded of the amount of work I put into it and the euphoric state that resulted because of it. Unfortunately, the high didn't last forever and I came back to reality several weeks afterwards.

I'm sure many of you can relate to this emotional roller coaster. Think back to your last big major accomplishment. Perhaps it was a job promotion, purchasing your latest home, car, etc, winning a poker tournament or graduating high school. Whatever it may be, I'm sure the praise from those around you melted with the work you put in to get there, and you felt pretty damn good about yourself, and what you'd accomplished. By now, the "high" has probably subsided, unless the event was rather recent, and you're back to living your daily life. This anomaly is something we must learn from if we are to find lasting happiness. Unfortunately for us, these major accomplishments don't happen to frequently and we cannot be expected to take on seemingly impossible tasks in order to find temporary euphoric states. Fortunately, that's not what I'm advocating. I'm merely pointing out that accomplishing these activities will not provide us with a permanent sense of fulfillment. So you're saying that success doesn't breed happiness? To quote again from Tal Ben Shahar who articulates it best in his best-selling book Happier, "Is the choice then either to be sustained by an illusion, that the attainment of certain goals will make us happier, or to face a brutal reality, that no matter what we do, we cannot become happier? Fortunately not. For we must understand the role that goals play in our lives and the relationship between goals and process, between destination and journey."



So what's the good news?!?! Well the good news is that Timothy Ferris' assessment of dreamlines was also right! Setting goals and trying to accomplish them will make you happy! But wait! You just said that the whole notion of goal setting was trivial because it doesn't matter if you succeed or fail. Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying. This is precisely the good news. Insofar that accomplishing your goals only provides lasting happiness, then wouldn't the same be true of failure with respect to unhappiness.

I remember my freshman year of high school. Nerves were high, new people, new school and a new life! I, more than anything, wanted to play basketball. Ever since I could remember, I played basketball in leagues, collected and traded basketball cards (where I got my degenerate roots) and practiced nearly everyday. Finally, the day had come! Freshman tryouts. I, along with around a hundred other hopefuls went to tryout for a team of merely 10. I remember the anticipation when the coach was about to call names for who made the team. The suspense was killing me. Ten names later it was all over and of course, I hadn't been called :(. I went home depressed, my life in shambles. I thought the world was caving in on me. I even found ways to convince myself that my dog hated me. As I sympathized with myself, I quickly realized that I got over the pain almost as quick as it had been sprung on me. From that day on I made a vow, I will never fail again! And guess what, I never have! No, only joking. I've failed millions of times (every losing day in poker is considered a failure!) since then and it hurts every time. Thankfully for us, it has the same impact that the success does on our happiness. It's extremely temporary. I know what you're thinking. If the result is so trivial, then what is the point of setting goals in the first place? And now you're ready for the moment of truth.

The word epiphany, derived from biblical times when the wise men, also called Magi, completed their journey and located Jesus, an epiphany transpired. This is often considered to be the birth of Jesus Christ as Savior and King! Several years later a specific date (January 6th), also the last day of the Christmas season, was designated to celebrate this significant event. Why am I telling you this? Because you are about to realize an equally important truth for your lives. The importance of goals is to liberate us, to enhance enjoyment of the present. When I look back at my triathlon, I realize that the fact I broke 3 hours was not what made me so happy. It was the struggle, the work, effort, sweat and tears I put into training so rigorously that made the experience so memorable. It was the anticipation of race day. Due to the enormity of the task, I took it one day at a time. Liberated by the goal I had set, I was free to enjoy the present moment and the challenge of training. Had my goal been unrealistic, say 2 hours, I would feel overwhelmed and anxious, and either quickly give up or be too stressed to enjoy training. Had the goal been too easy, say 6 hours, I would have quickly became bored with training or not completed the regimen. Had I no goal at all, I would have been no better than a chicken with his head cut off, and not have any date to keep me accountable for my training. I went through this process for a while and gave up on training several times. It wasn't until I registered for a specific date and set a difficult, yet attainable goal, that I really enjoyed training and focused on challenging myself. Through trial and error, I finally found a way to enjoy the process while challenging myself in a constructive and effective way. It is not so much the emphasis the goals as it is on having them to enhance enjoyment of the present! In Happier, Shahar depicts the classic analogy of a group of friends taking a road trip. He goes on to say something to the effect of, "if we proceed to take the trip without any direction, every fork in the road becomes a site of ambivalence, and neither turning left nor right seems to have any real benefit or consequence. We don't know where these roads will lead. So instead of focusing on the landscape, the scenery and the flowers on the side of the road, we are consumed by hesitation and uncertainty. If we have a destination in mind, we are free to focus our full attention on making the most of where we are. This is precisely why I enjoyed New Zealand so much. I savored each moment and completely enjoyed the journey. The same goes for any of the other weeks I have found to be some of the best in my life.





There is more good news! In light of this information, and seeing that failure is seemingly less important than we previously thought, we are free to take more risks! This is precisely why many of my friends would consider me carefree, (perhaps to my detriment sometimes), laid back, free spirited, etc. Literally nothing bothers me. I know from experience, and poker has helped immensely, that every time I lose, fail or misplay that things will quickly retreat to normal. I have made this mentality the focal point of my life. I often say to myself, "what's the worst that can happen?" If I do it and fail, or it sucks or I don't like it, fine. At least I tired, grew, learned and became stronger because of it. Kanye West put it best when he said, "that which don't kill me, will only make me stronger." He's right! If we fail, so what? We can nearly always go back to doing what we used to do.

I encourage all of you to take a chance, go out on a limb, ask out the waitress you always flirt with and most importantly, enjoy every moment. If we are constantly looking forward to the next big thing, we will end up like Adam Sandler in "Click", where he wastes his whole life away (with a magical remote that lets him skip forward in time to the event of his choosing but not backwards) before figuring out that he has to enjoy the time he has with those he loves to be truly happy. Many of you may feel like Jack Black's character in "Kung Fu Panda", when he learns that the secret scroll that is supposed to be the key to being the best Kung Fu artist in the world, is blank. The same is true for your happiness. The scroll is blank. There is no secret, except that life is what we make of it. We must enjoy everyday we have (I think I once calculated I only have some 20,000 left in expected value) and be grateful for our health, homes, jobs, friends and family. I don't know about you, but 20,000 isn't many and unless you plan on being reincarnated as an avocado, you're going to be dead a long time. I can't afford to be wasting precious days upset, nervous, resentful or jealous. I've got a lot I want to do and not a lot of time to do it. That's a dangerous combination if we are not maximizing our time. I want to have my own business, be proficient in Italian, piano and voice, learn to cook, be a best selling author, have my own radio show, own a house, make 10,000,000 dollars and many other things. And I know that none of them will make me happy! But I will put my whole being into enjoying each moment of each day until I get there, and that my friends, is the key!


In the last and final post regarding this matter, I will discuss the types of goals to set as well as provide insight from readers and discuss further what I have learned on the subject. In the mean time, I strongly recommend reading "Happier" by Tal Ben Shahar, as well as "Four Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferris. They have been a huge influence in my life, and articulate much better than I possibly could and in much more detail, what it takes to find lasting happiness!



In a creative attempt to reduce the number of emails I get (I feel bad as I have not yet responded to some of them), I am going to specify certain groups of people I want to hear from on a particular week. For example I might say, "this week I want to hear from left handed people only." Don't try to find correlation. The fact is left handed has nothing to do with why I want to hear from them. I will also note I'll generally do whatever is on my mind at the time of writing the blog. That being said, this week I'd like to hear ONLY from people who CURRENTLY live in a country outside the United States!



As always, you can contact me at alectorelli@gmail.com



Until next time!



Cheers,



~ Trah ~