Happiness is a comparison thing

Everyone wants to be happy. If you asked everybody in the world what the purpose of life is, I'm sure the answer 'to be happy' would be near the top of the list. Everyone has different idea of what that looks like, even people in similar situations. If you compared what happiness looks like now to what it looked like a thousand years ago it would be tough to even say the two are the same thing even at the very root.

Think about this for a second. Say you were the only person on earth. You never knew another human, you never even knew that another human could exist. How would you get happiness? You might say that it would be really tough to do because you'd be incredibly lonely - but that's not true. You can't be lonely if that's the only state you've ever been in. Without ever experiencing or seeing feelings of companionship and human intimacy, it would be impossible to miss those things. So how would you find happiness? I think you could do it, but it would certainly look a lot different.

What does happiness look to you right now? Stop for a second and think about it. Is it falling in love and raising a family? Is it having your dream job and being excited to wake up every morning? Is it making a ton of money so you can live how you want and travel where you want? Is it finding a bigger purpose in life, something supernatural, living for something bigger than yourself, even something you've haven't necessarily seen or fully experienced yet?

For me, there's no job or any amount of money or any girl that could ever bring me full happiness. I believe full happiness lies in my faith in God and where that will take me, but let's not get off track.

Now what if the thing that you believe brings happiness never existed? Could you find some other way to be happy? If dream jobs didn't exist, if everyone simply did the same job 40 hours a week, could you find happiness somewhere else? Of course you could. The human mind is built to adapt and adjust. You weren't predestined to find happiness in one specific thing, you find happiness in whatever your thoughts and circumstances put in front of you (or you take the extra step and put it in front of yourself - for you self-confident optimists out there).

Now let's bring in the experience of seeing other people's happiness into the equation. Our minds adapt and adjust, sure, but they also compare and contrast. You see your friends happiness, or worse, some celebrities 'happiness', and your brain goes to work. Your brain starts comparing their happiness with your own happiness. Suddenly happiness isn't such a personal thing is it? You were perfectly happy with the job you had and the money you made and the relationships you were in until you saw what another person had and started wondering if it was better than what you had. All of the sudden your happiness is gone, for no other reason but you saw another person appearing happy and lost your own mindset and contentment. If true happiness is happiness that appears better than everyone else's happiness, there's only going to be one happy person on earth - and who wants to live life like that? Happiness isn't a competition.

Media is one of the main catalysts of everything I just spoke about. You get on Facebook and see what your friends are doing and you start comparing yourself to them. The problem with that is that people don't typically make their low points public. What you're seeing from someone's online postings are the things they want people to see, the things that make people envious of them (that may not be your intention, but ultimately that's what you're doing). There's a quote that says it pretty well:

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else's highlight reel"

Just because someone has more of something that you want than you do doesn't mean you can't be happy. That's ludicrous. There will always be someone better, there will always be someone that has more than you. If you let that dictate your happiness you'll simply be miserable your entire life.

This post is like most of my posts in that it doesn't have a conclusion. I could sit here like every other inspired young person in the world and write some cliche like 'stop comparing yourself and be happy with who you are - because you're unique and perfect in your own way', but I don't think that would do anybody any good. If you struggle with happiness because you're stuck in comparison mode, that sucks and you might not ever get out of that, and that's a hard reality. But at least try to get out of it. Believe in God? Ask Him for help. Have family and friends? Talk to them about it. Stop putting everything on yourself, narrow your focus, and start becoming happier.

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When are we actually 'blessed'?

So I'm moving my blog back here because I can't post from Medium at work.

This post is pretty specifically about Christianity. I'm not interested in creationism vs. evolution arguments, so if you have a problem with my inability to prove the whole reason behind what I'm writing - go read some blog about seashells or go whine about the How I Met Your Mother season finale on Facebook with the rest of the world.

You hear Christians say how 'blessed' they are all the time. We get a promotion at work and we say how blessed we are. We get good grades in school and get a degree and say how blessed we are. We meet someone we really like and get to spend a lot of time with them and say how blessed we are. We go to the doctor and they say we don't have typhoid fever and we say how blessed we are. We guess right on the trivia question on the Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and win a free donut and say how blessed we are. We sure say that a lot don't we?

All of the Christians I hear this from our well off American citizens that never had to worry about food or shelter growing up and are in good position to make something of themselves in this life. So from the beginning, yes, we could say that we are blessed. I was fortunate enough to have been birthed by two wise, intelligent adults with steady jobs, good morals, and a knowledge of how to raise children the right way. Did I do anything to control that? No. By definition, I was fortunate. A lot of Christians attribute fortune to God, which I don't have a problem with. God made everything, God has control over everything, so why couldn't someone say that God directly brought them good fortune? No arguments there.

But at some point we stop thinking about we're saying and we just blindly start attributing things to God or to the devil or to whatever other thing.

God's in control over everything, I believe that. But does God really grant blessing primarily and directly in the form of wordly material? Does that sound like the God you believe in? To reward strong faith and good action with a new car? With a pay bump so you can live in a more expensive apartment and take more vacations? If you think differently, read Matthew 5:1-12.

The more you learn about Jesus, the more you really do start to view comfort as an enemy. We all want to be comfortable and financially well off, but doesn't that make relying completely on God a lot more difficult? You can say how God blessed you with everything you have all day long, but that doesn't mean you aren't attached to what you have or that you don't feel that you earned what you have by yourself.

That said, doesn't thanking God for giving you something that (most of the time) works to pull you away from Him seem backwards? I'm not completely sold on what I'm saying here either, but I think it's worth thinking about.

I believe that God's biggest blessing on my life, the thing that I had no control over myself and the thing that God Himself really wanted for me, was the fact that I was raised in circumstances where I could find faith in Him. My parents took me to church every week, they put me through Christian school for ten years, and they were loving and not suppressive to where I respected and listened to them. They didn't push beliefs on me, they let me figure it out for my own - and I'm happy with what I figured out for myself. I'm not saying what I believe is 100% right or that I think less of anyone who doesn't believe what I believe, but for me personally, I feel very blessed to have arrived at this point.

God gave me a healthy brain, God gave me a healthy body, He gave me an awareness and ability for dealing with life and with other people, and those things are going to help me be successful in life. I didn't earn my talents, I didn't choose my parents or my cirumstances, so I can't say that anywhere I get in life is all because of myself. But let me be bold and say that I don't think God much cares how much money I make a year. I don't think God much cares how big my TV screen is at home, I don't even think that God much cares that I'm healthy and comfortable in every day life. What about people born into poverty. Did they do anything to earn that life? Is that some kind of punishment from God? My hard work right now will result in me making an extra $10,000 a year next year. Their hard work is that they get to be alive next week. Is God not blessing them?

Life's weird. Think about it.

p.s. I totally plagiarized a lot of this post from this article - so I'd recommend reading that as well.

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The best things in life

I’m 23 years old and still relatively inexperienced, so for me to come on here and say I know all about what’s good and bad in life would be hypocritical. But there have been a few life lessons laid in front of me and one of them in particular has stuck out to be recently.

Looking at a slightly bigger picture of life, it sure seems like the best things in life are things that take time to achieve. They are things that take a lot patience, will-power, and hard work to get. That’s why healthy food doesn’t taste good, and why you can’t just do a few push-ups a day and be in good shape. That’s why tobacco and alcohol are really bad for your body, and pornography is so bad for your mind. Most things that give quick satisfaction are bad for you in the long run, and most things that are good for you in the long run don’t provide much instant gratification. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The life lessons that we all learn take time. There are very few things that we understand naturally and quickly, which is why those understandings are so valuable when you find them. Malcolm Gladwell said it takes 10,000 hours of working in a field to achieve mastery in it. Just because someone says something like that doesn’t make it true, but it’s largely accepted, and really eye opening. What would the point of life be if you could just get everything you want super easily? Would you really have any appreciation for anything? Would you ever be able to have real passion for anything? Absolutely not.

The more you think about it, the more true it becomes. If you live your life looking for gratification out of short-term things and quick fixes, you’ll never really get anything out of life. You’ll never be truly happy and you’ll always be relatively disappointed.

Commit to long-term goals, think before you act, and find something to work hard for. No matter what it is. Work towards something no matter how far off it seems, having a far off goal and doing whatever it takes to reach it is a sure fire way to really live a full life.

… or something like that, I don’t know

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Reaching for unreachable

I saw this quote on Twitter the other day, and I don’t know exactly what it was but it said something to the extent of the following:

Don’t get upset about having flaws, and don’t criticize others for having flaws. Flaws are what makes humans unique; they make life interesting.

It was probably worded a bit better than that, but that’s all I can do for you right now.

Anyways, I saw that and my mind immediately started thinking about it. We all know that nobody is perfect. There is not a person in the world that hasn’t made a mistake or done something they wish they wouldn’t have. So, in a way, having flaws doesn’t make us unique. Having flaws makes us just like everyone else in the world, who also has flaws. It’s not some stand out thing to make mistakes. I don’t think having flaws makes life any better in any way. I think that the process of learning to react to the flaws and improve after you see them is what makes life more enriching and fulfilling. It’s one thing to learn a lesson verbally as a kid, but it’s a completely different thing to learn a lesson from an experience that maybe didn’t turn out as well as you would have liked it to. Some of the most impressive lessons a human learns are ones through experience, where they can see the repercussions and the impact it really made.

Now all that is just fluff. It’s all stuff everybody’s heard before. I’m not breaking any new ground there.

But how about this? How about not letting the fact that nobody’s perfect make it okay to not try to be perfect. What’s so bad about striving to not have flaws anymore? If someone came up to you and told you that they were trying to go an entire week doing everything the right way, you’d probably think they were some super cocky, unrealistic person. Striving for perfection is almost looked down upon.

Is it possible to be perfect? Absolutely not. But that fact stopping people from trying is stupid to me. You shouldn’t let mistakes discourage you, but you shouldn’t brush them off and think that they couldn’t have been avoided. Living for an unattainable goal seems empty and kinda foolish, but I think it can be really rewarding. Never reaching the goal doesn’t mean you failed, it means you tried to reach something that nobody else did — and I think that fact alone can take your life to a whole new level.

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128 Hours

The whole education system is about getting you to a place where you can excel after you graduate. But ‘excel’, they mean you can make enough money to support yourself and eventually a family while not completely hating your life at work. If you chose the right major, that’s not very hard to reach, in fact it’s really easy, especially if you have some people skills.

Choosing the right major can be tough though. I’ve come to realize that no 18 year old kid knows anything about life and they really shouldn’t have all the say in what major they choose. If it had been up to me I would have majored in Sports Broadcasting in college and I’d be living with my parents for the next couple years because I’d never have enough to money to pay off student loans and pay rent at the same time. What really killed me in college was seeing some of the people that did major in Sports Braodcasting and majors like that. It’s hard enough to get jobs in those fields even when you’re really good at it, but some of those people were just miserable at it. Do people still operate under the idea that “you can be whatever you want to be”? Because you can’t, you just can’t.

If you’re on the basketball team and you never get in the game, there’s probably a reason for that. You can fuss about it all day, but it’s your own fault for spending time on something you’re no good at. Why’s it such a negative thing to say shit I’m terrible at this thing, I’m going to go do something I’m not terrible at it so I have a shot. There’s something to be said for PRACTICE and HARD WORK and that balogna, but there’s even more to be said for just starting out with talent and using that headstart to get somewhere. If you’re the 10th man off the bench, don’t worry about it, just quit. If you love it too much to quit, stop loving it and quit anyway.

I don’t think happiness in life comes from career success anyways. There are too many people that sit in cubicles for 40 hours a week to believe that none of them are truly happy. A desk job can’t possibly bring true happiness, I just won’t believe that. Happiness comes from the other 128 hours in the week. It comes from the relationships you have and the time you spend on things you choose. If you’re lucky enough to find a job in the thing you love (or just to love something that’s a common job), then that’s great for you, don’t brag about it to me though because that would make me jealous and really piss me off.

The frustrating thing about my life isn’t that my job is dull, it’s that I haven’t been able to use those other 128 hours to their full potential yet. The thing I miss most about college is just having people to talk to around me all the time. Having one interesting, genuine, funny conversation can make an entire day for me, and I’d take having more of those over having a job that I liked more any time.

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Actually knowing what you’re talking about

I've always been a bit picky about certain things… mainly things that like no one else is picky about. I hate when people use expressions wrong, like saying “I could care less” when they actually mean that they couldn't care less, and other things of that nature. Most of it has to do with words and the way people say things, which leads to this post.

Went to church tonight and they did that song “Scandal of Grace” (chill out this isn’t a religion based post), and at one point I looked at the words and I’m like wait why are they calling it a scandal? What’s scandalous about it? Doesn't that make it sound negative?

Unsurprisingly, the person who wrote the song was not being stupid and it actually has a pretty interesting meaning behind it, but it took me asking a few people to get a good answer for it. I had to get the whole way to asking the pastor of the church to get an answer that I actually liked.

I’m not saying it’s shameful or wrong that some people didn't have the right answer to a random and largely unimportant question, but I do think that we have a habit as humans of not ever thinking about the things we say or read. People never stop to really think about stuff. They’ll read something analogous and never even think to discover the analogy.

This mainly applies to situations in Christianity to me I suppose because that’s where I see it the most… so here’s another Christian example.

There’s this Bible verse that says it’s “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get to heaven”. Scary verse, but that’s not the point right now. The fact is that everybody I’ve ever talked to about that verse has no idea what it actually means. They think it’s just saying that it’s really hard for a rich person to get to heaven because of the comparison to a huge ass camel fitting through the space that’s occupied by a tiny little needle. GUESS WHAT — they probably didn’t have NEEDLES when that verse was written. It means something completely different and you’d just do a tiny bit of research you could figure it out. It really changes the whole meaning of the verse, which isn’t something you’d want to miss out on if you really cared.

Maybe I’m being picky again, but I just really wish people would be more conscious with their words.

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Figuring it out on your own

I’m reading “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis, and it’s honestly one of the coolest books I've ever read. Basically, Lewis writes a bunch of letters as if a demon were writing to his nephew, who’s also a demon. The demons are in hell, and they are each assigned one person to try and trip up. So C.S. Lewis gives up the picture on the other side. Being a Christian my whole life, I've found that everything comes at you from the same perspective with the same words, and that really makes important stuff hard to really understand. This book really puts into a different perspective and hits you with some things you've never really thought of before. It’s a great read for anybody really. I’m only on like the 6th letter, but this passage below really stood out to me. Remember, this is basically the devil talking, ‘The Enemy’ refers to God.

“The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His ‘free’ lovers and servants — ‘sons’ is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refused to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to ‘do it on their own’. And there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt.”

So this is all obviously very Christian and religious, and I know most of my friends don’t really think about this stuff too often, and a lot of them don’t really care about it at all, but I think it’s interesting regardless of what you believe. Isn't it true for raising children too? Think about it. If your parents never let you figure anything out for yourself and struggle through things, how would you ever learn anything? If your parents held your hand every second of the day for the first 3 years of your life how would you ever learn to walk? Humans learn best when there’s some pressure on them to teach themselves or at least fall into the lesson at some point. Not only is there a sense of pride in figuring it out for yourself that strengthens the memory and adhesiveness of the lesson, you just see more of the whole picture that helps you keep going.

If God was just going to walk us through everything and make it all obvious and provable, what would it even mean that we do believe what He says? It would be meaningless. Following and believing firmly in God wouldn’t be worthwhile because it was too easy and too obvious. Nothing truly worthwhile is easy to get.

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