5 Ways To Find True Happiness
By: Paul Marsh
Tags: Storytelling, Life, Advice, Happiness, Joy

Effective strategies to ensure you never lack the joy and wonder of youth.

Mi Pham via Unsplash

While I consider myself somewhat limited in the life experiences column, I know of no one who claims to want to lead a life lacking happiness. In these challenging times, I’ve seen all manner of attempts to find it taken by loved ones and those closest to me, as well as individuals from afar. As a society, we seek happiness through relationships, material possessions, even through experiences.

While all of these outward expressions are great, very rarely do they come from within, where I think happiness should start. After all, before roses bloom into the captivating flowers they’re known to be, they first start out as seeds, buried deep underground in the muck. In similar fashion, I believe that’s where happiness starts — from deep within yourself, in your “roots” if you will.

In spite of everything going on across the globe and in the country, I’m immensely rooted in my own happiness. So rooted in fact, I oftentimes feel guilty for it. The state of the world, coupled with everything that’s taken place here in the U.S., has affected me without a doubt, but it hasn’t taken away from my ability to wake up full of joy.

Every day I have breath in my lungs is full of purpose. I’m chasing my dreams and getting closer to them with each passing day (like becoming an editor for the Good Men Project). I have a few genuine but meaningful relationships with close friends, all in addition to the strong bond I share with my closest relatives. I’m alive and well, full of more vitality than I’ve ever been at any point in my young life. For those of you wondering how this came to be, I’d like to share five simple, actionable ways to find true happiness that have proved effective for me.

1) Be vulnerable.

At one point in my life, I was afraid of vulnerability. I looked at it as weakness, a way of conceding first in situations that would ultimately lead to me coming out the “loser.” With family, friends, even in my first few intimate relationships, I refrained from truly opening up. And yet, I always expected this of the other person (pretty backwards, I know). In hindsight, I realize I chose to preserve my ego over those opportunities for vulnerability. And yet, the voices in my head constantly nagged me about how my lack of transparency left things too open-ended, making finding closure in turbulent situations impossible.

After a relationship that was very dear to me failed, I realized I could continue down the path toward self-destruction, which anyone who embraces ego over vulnerability eventually winds up on, or I could appreciate the fact that truly opening up takes courage. I don’t always know how the person I’m being vulnerable with will react, nor do I have any guarantees that the end result will be personally favorable, but I do know this — I can sleep much better at night, and those voices that used to nag me incessantly cease to exist. In essence, I’ve found peace through being vulnerable. It’s hard to be unhappy when you know you’ve lain all your cards out on the table.

2) Learn from the past.

I believe there’s a difference between having a past and learning from it. Having a past, especially an unresolved one, leads to the swift accumulation of baggage, while learning from your past leads to healing, maybe even breakthroughs. The critical component to differentiate between these two is reflection. In our fast-paced world, making time to stop, assess one’s life and choices, and ruminate is seldom possible. And yet, like the old adage says, “If you want to do something, you do it. If not, you make excuses.”

In my own life, I’ve made it a point to reflect as often as possible, starting to take this seriously at the beginning of 2018. Reflecting to me is nothing more than looking over one’s life in similar fashion to the way a mechanic looks over your vehicle when you take it in for a comprehensive check-up. They look over every major component and part, assessing each ones’ ability to perform and the longevity of the vehicle as a whole.

In similar fashion, taking stock of your life on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis opens up the door for you to assess what’s working, what isn’t, and gives you the leeway to make the necessary changes to improve the overall quality of your life.

3) Make NEW mistakes.

The majority of people I know subscribe to the “don’t make the same mistake twice” mentality. If this works for them, great, but I feel this verbiage is a bit negative, putting unnecessary subconscious pressure on a person to be perfect. I prefer the “make new mistakes” ideology. When you’re making new mistakes, you’re learning. Part of this requires you to get out of your comfort zone, part of it requires you to be willing to take calculated risks, and the other part requires you to be as open-minded as possible. What do all of these things have in common? THEY PROMOTE GROWTH!

Growth and learning go hand in hand. The more you’re willing to learn, the more you’ll grow. For instance, the infamous Thomas Edison made over 10,000 mistakes before he successfully created the incandescent light bulb. Because of his willingness to make new mistakes, he learned a great deal about what not to do, all while paving the way to fashion what can be considered one of the most important inventions of all time. In my own life, making new mistakes has enabled me to acquire a great deal of experience, insights, and knowledge that have made me well-rounded (at least, I hope) and add vigor to my life, as I see now that a great deal of “infinite wisdom” can be accumulated from making new mistakes, but not without a willingness to learn from said mistakes.

4) Put your best foot forward in all that you do.

Another way of saying this — always do your best. In the Summer of 2012, I played AAU basketball for a team competing at a competition where several D-2 and some D-1 college basketball coaches were present. I was added to my team’s roster last-minute after the coach witnessed my approach to defense during a pick-up game and immediately wanted to utilize my skillset. I had two weeks to get ready for our first tournament game. Somewhat apprehensive, I called on one of my closest friends at the time, a basketball savant in his own right, to help me prep.

We spent countless hours over those two weeks running drills, watching videos, playing pick-up games, and fine-tuning my defensive and offensive skill sets until I felt truly ready. When game day arrived, I put everything out on the court. As a last-minute addition, I didn’t get as much playing time as those who’d been on the team since its inception, but when I was on the court, I gave my all. We lost in the end, but I walked away content knowing I did all that I could to help us win.

When you give your all to whatever you’re pursuing, there’s little, if any, room for doubt or other forms of negativity to seep into your mind.

5) Express gratitude daily.

On the TV stand in my living room rests a wooden plaque with the phrase, “Be Grateful” engraved in gold. Gratitude is the easiest way to “hijack” your mindset and change your thought patterns. After all, whatever we allow our mind to focus on ultimately grows.

Your thoughts are to your mind what seeds are to soil. If you choose to focus on what you lack, all you’ll see is what you lack because you’re allowing those thoughts to grow. Conversely, focusing on gratitude ushers in positive emotions. Personally, it’s helped me connect deeper to the spiritual forces at work in our world, allowing me to appreciate things as simple but profound as a gentle breeze, the abundance of trees in my apartment complex, or the energizing effects of stepping outside into sunshine.