Reframing Happiness: How Difficulty and Disappointment Make Us Stronger

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I thought life would be different by now.

Last year, after the birth of our third child, my wife started having episodes of severe pain in her sides and stomach. We saw doctors and took tests, but no one had answers, and the pain kept getting worse each week.

After several months of this, she had an exploratory surgery and was diagnosed with adenomyosis. The pain was consuming our lives, and so we opted for the only cure–hysterectomy.

This wasn’t how we thought our life would go. We wanted more kids. We didn’t want to have to endure surgery and recovery, and we had to put many of our goals on hold.

Life is hard. I can’t pretend to know why some seem to have it worse than others, but here's what I've learned through this: our happiness is either dependent on what happens to us, or we are in control of our happiness despite what happens to us.

The Cultural View of Happiness

The view of happiness in modern Western society is vastly different than many other societies. Our innovations in technology have coincided with our changes in thinking, and the effects have not been good for our overall state of happiness.

In his book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Truman outlined how our society has come to view what it means to be human. The French philosopher, Rousseau, proposed the radical idea that our innate desires are good and rather than conforming to an outside standard of doing good, happiness would be found through finding meaning within ourselves.

Another key figure was Freud, who concluded that happiness is explicitly sexual. For him, there was no higher good than immediate gratification.

While most people today probably haven’t read Rousseau or Freud, the thinking of these philosophers–and many more like them–underlies the challenges to our modern notions of happiness.

Happiness today has become all about finding our “true authentic self,” and finding ways to satisfy the immediate desires of that true self.

But in the end, these ideas only lead to disappointment and dissatisfaction.

We long for a deeper meaning beyond the present moment. Even if we’re not consciously aware of this longing, seeking to fulfill ourselves through instant gratification leaves us empty. In order to thrive in today’s culture we need to look beyond the current ideas of happiness, and find something better.

Here are three tips to get started:

1. Accept Difficulty

Expectations determine how we react to events.

If you are a sports fan, you know this well. If your team recently had a bad season, your expectations for the next season are low. So if they end up making the playoffs and having a decent season, you’re going to be happy. But if they just came off winning the Super Bowl, and in the next season they only make it to the playoffs, you’re going to be disappointed.

Same outcomes, but your response is different because your expectations were different.

The same can be said about life. If we expect life to be easy and comfortable, we will be disappointed. But if we embrace the challenges life throws at us, we can find happiness despite these challenges.

This doesn’t mean we go through life as pessimists–in fact, it’s the opposite. When we set proper expectations for the difficulties we'll encounter, we won't feel defeated when trials do come our way. Instead, we focus on how we will overcome those challenges. What lessons can we learn? How can this help us become stronger men in the future?

A ship's sails are dependent on the wind, but a rudder sets the course. Be a rudder, not a sail.

2. Embrace Delay

Much has been written about delayed gratification. A famous study in the 1960's called the “marshmallow test” looked at self control in children. Given the choice of one treat now versus waiting ten minutes and getting two treats, follow-ups to the original study showed a correlation between those children who were able to wait for the better treat and their sense of happiness later in life.

Even today, we feel pressure to try and fulfill every desire we have immediately. Especially with a culture encouraging us to buy more stuff now so we'll "be happy."

The best athletes work their bodies for hours a day, years on end, to ultimately become the best at what they do. While we may not need that level of dedication, it illustrates that we can’t thrive if we focus solely on fulfilling only our immediate desires.

Contrary to what our culture tells us, happiness won’t be found by only looking inside ourselves. We are social beings, and we need to include others if we want to be fulfilled.

3. Slow Down

This doesn't mean we can't enjoy the moments in our lives. Life is a journey. We need to enjoy the journey, and not wait to find happiness until we arrive at the destination–wherever that is.

So there’s a tension between delaying instant gratification, working towards goals in the future, and finding joy in the moment.

This is the tension where life is lived and happiness is found.

I believe we can find this happiness when we slow down and stop putting all our hopes in a future event. For me, when my wife was sick and in recovery, that meant doing the dishes more, changing more diapers, and cooking more meals.

When I was able to find satisfaction in the completion of these small activities, I was able to find moments of joy. I was also able to find joy in serving my wife. Rather than seeing it as a burden, I came to see it as an opportunity. Through it, my family grew closer together.

We are either happy now, or we are not happy. The future is not guaranteed. But finding happiness in the moment should be our default state of mind. Sometimes, it’s a battle. We must fight to control our emotions and work to not just be subject to our circumstances.

Submitted by Michael S.

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