CENT Paper No.15:

The psychology and philosophy of happiness

By Dr Jim Byrne

Copyright (c) Jim Byrne, September 2011

Introduction

The psychology of happiness, as explored by Positive Psychology researchers, says that we have to develop our virtues and our strengths, and to live from our virtues and our strengths, in order to be optimally happy.  (See the work of Dr Martin Seligman and others, especially Seligman's book, 'Authentic Happiness'). 

Being virtuous is not difficult to understand.  It involves being honest and compassionate and charitable, and avoiding harming others.  It also involves being brave in the face of life's difficulties.  It especially involves not playing the game of the neo-liberal promoters of social inequality.  Equality is better for EVERYBODY, and so living a virtuous life necessarily involves being pro-social and anti-individualistic, and anti-materialistic.

The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome were clear about this: that in order to live the good life, one has to live a good (moral) life.  Grabbing goodies from greed and insecurity is the path to unhappiness.  Material possessions cannot make you happy, once you have reached subsistence level!

~~~

To live a happy life, according to Buddhism and Stoicism, you must accept the things you cannot change, and change the things you can.  Do not rail again life's misfortunes.  Express gratitude for every little thing that life gives you.  Be kind to others, as that will rebound on you in enhanced happiness.  Recognize that what you see as 'reality' is normally a distorted interpretation, and work at trying to be a clear thinker.  Do your social duty; and recognize that the line between Good and Evil runs right down the middle of every human heart.  Therefore, watch yourself like a hawk, and make sure your Bad Wolf side does not manifest in the world.  Avoid anger, rage, hostility, greed, envy, laziness, unbounded ambition, selfishness, ignorance and vanity.

In terms of goals, make sure you have some, but do not insist that they must be achieved, or you will be endlessly happy.  Strive to make them happen, by intelligent action in the real world.  Do not compete with others to achieve your goals, but rather compete against your own previous best performance.  And make sure you have a good balance of long-range goals (for meaning) and short-range goals for pleasure.

If you want to be happier, remember: Every night before you go to bed, make a list of five or six things you are grateful for from that day.  It might be something you got; something you gave; something you saw or heard; or something (bad) that did not happen!  Choose one of those items and go to bed determined to dream about it. 

Keep a happiness journal and write about things for which you can be grateful; people you love and why you love them; good times from the past; imagine all your realistic goals have been achieved, and luxuriate in the effect; but then do the Stoic ‘negative visualization' exercise - of imaging everything you have has now been lost - in order to avoid taking things for granted.

Aim for calm, serene happiness

In the past, I have distinguished between calm, serene happiness, and excited, aroused happiness.

Excited, aroused happiness occurs in response to something that you strongly desired and got;

or something that surprised you which was positive. 

It comes from outside of you. As such you cannot control it, and making youself dependent upon such happiness is the road to suffering.

Calm, serene happiness occurs when you are at peace with the world, and you have a positive mental attitude that is not dictated by the external world.  This is what Seneca meant when he said:

"True joy is serene".

Aristotle believed that our deepest happiness comes from living a good life.  What he meant was that moral functioning translates into happy functioning.  That's why I always say: to live the good life, you have to be willing to live a good life.

An element of this idea is caught in the following quote from Maeterlinck:

"Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness.  It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul".  Count Maurice Maeterlinck

To spend "peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul" you can always choose to read uplifting literature; read the best authors on the moral life; read Buddhist literature; or Sufi literature; or any elaborated spiritual tradition's literature.  Try Alan Watts' book: The Way of Zen; or Eckhart Tolle's book: The Power of Now.  Look for books of uplifting quotations from sages and wise people. Or read inspiring literature with a moral message.

You could try walking in nature; Gardening; Listening to classical music, especially Baroque music, or Mozart.  (Not loud rock music or heavy metal.  Those kinds of music promote the dark side of the mind).

Try dancing and singing along to uplifting pop songs.

Meditationis a great source of serenity and inner peace, and you can learn how to do it from a book, a DVD, or a local class in a Buddhist centre, or even in some adult education centres. (See our How to Meditate*** page).

Accept that change is the law of life, and that your life will keep changing no matter how comfortable you are feeling.

"If you could really penetrate the truth about impermanence our life would be lived very differently.  We could live with more joy and spontaneity - able to rejoice in the continuously emerging wonder of life.  We could learn to flow with life's ups and downs because we know them to be changing situations".  Cited in 'Words for Life', by Connie Harrison.

Go on a ‘news fast'.  Avoid the newspapers and the TV and radio news for a month.  Believe me, you won't miss it, and your life will become much less distressed and agitated than it currently happens to be.

Eliminate violent and aggressive films and angry soap operas.

Try listing three to six things you can be grateful for, each night, before you retire, and then try to dream about one of them.

Write a letter of gratitude to somebody who has helped you.  Write a letter of gratitude to your mother, and/or father, for giving you life, and bringing you up.  (You don't have to post it - but if you were willing to post it, think what a rare gift that would be for them!) Even if they are not longer living, writing a letter of gratitude to your parents is a wonderfully healing process, which will enhance your happiness and serenity.

Choose to love, and refuse to hate.

Avoid angering, depressing or frightening yourself with exaggerated ideas and excessive demands about how life should or should not be.

Choose to be optimistic and always expect the best to happen.

Avoid gloomy thoughts.

Do not spread or listen to rumours about others. Be kind and compassionate towards others.

Maintain a positive mental attitude, for the more often you have a good, positive mental attitude, the more often you will live through happy days.

Do whatever counselling and therapy you need to do in order to clean up the past. (Some of that can be done by writing therapy***, on your own; or by reading the best self-help books).  Get coaching advice on dealing with knotty problems.

Explore the Personal Development section of good book shops. 

But how do you maintain a good, positive mental attitude when your environment is bad, negative, and objectionable?  That is the trick that was mastered in Buddhism, in Stoicism, and brought to counselling and therapy by Dr Albert Ellis's Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy(REBT)***.  It is carried on in various ways in my Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT)***.

~~~

You can't hold on to happiness - You can only create it!

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.  And the selfsame well from which your laughter arises was oftentimes filled with tears"
Kahlil Gibran

Towards the end of each week, I find myself wondering what I will write about in my Happiness blog.  The blog is about - mainly - thinking your way to happiness - in the context of the development of Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy.  It sometimes seems to me that I must pretty soon run out of things to say on this subject.  Just how much is there to be said on the subject of how to work your way towards a happier life?  (Answer: I don't know yet!)

This morning I opened a little book of quotations on happiness: titled, ‘Happiness: Inspirational quotations'; no author.  My attention was grabbed by this quote:

"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued,

is always beyond our grasp, but which,

if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you".

Nathaniel Hawthorne

~~~

This is a very interesting idea.

Firstly, it reminded me of how happy I feel when I have done my daily meditation, which involves being willing to ‘sit down quietly', and observe your own breathing, in and out, and focus your attention on a small area of space directly in front of you.  My life has definitely been enriched by daily meditation, and I would recommend it to anybody, as an experiment for them to explore.

Secondly, this little quotation reminded me of a statement by Werner Erhard, the creator of Erhard Seminar Training (est).  In his Relationships Course, Werner used to teach that "You cannot hold on to satisfaction; you can only create it.  And the only way you can create anything is if you have the space in which to create it.  And the only way to create the space in which to experience satisfaction is if you complete your experience of the dissatisfaction in your life".

Now that is a kind of specialist form of words, so what does it mean to complete your experience***?

Firstly, we all have great moments in our lives, and we then make the mistake of trying to hold on to them.  But trying to hold on to such moments is like trying to stop the sun going down at the end of a happy day, or resisting moving into Saturday because Friday was so nice.  It cannot be done.  So right there you have the two edged sword of satisfaction.  Because you like it, you want to cling to it, but because you cannot cling to it, you experience dissatisfaction.  So even if nothing objectively bad ever happened to you, you would still be unhappy much of the time, because you would be stuck in the dissatisfaction of having to let go of every good moment that passes through your life.

Secondly, most people also have objectively bad experiences, of being criticized, or punished, or deprived of something or somebody, of feeling pain, of being bullied, abused, and so on.  And when we encounter those bad experiences, it is not uncommon for humans to try to push them away, which means to push them out of awareness; to repress them into non-consciousness.  This is a big mistake.  Why?

Because, whatever you resist persists.  To the degree that you resist any negative experience, you are refusing to process it; refusing to digest it.  And so it gets stuck in the basement of your mind in an undigested form, and rattles around there for years, or perhaps even for a lifetime, throwing up neurotic symptoms, including a great deal of personal unhappiness.  All of the incomplete, undigested experiences in your life, in the basement of your mind, mounts up to feeling like a great invisible weight which you must carry through each day. 

The solution is to complete your experience of those bad things that have happened to you; to digest them; to chew them up; or burn them up; so that they can disappear, or go into the background of your life with their emotional charge neutralized or discharged.

If you have a major unhappiness in your life, especially one that stems from early childhood, then you need to dig that up, process it, digest it, and allow it to burn out, and become a neutral element that disappears into the background of your life.

How can you do that?  One way would be to see a good psycho-dynamic counsellor; or read appropriate books on healing childhood memories.  Or you could take a look at how I came to terms with a most unsatisfactory relationship with my mother, which I have written up in CENT Paper No.10.

Helen Keller said: "Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.  It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose".  What is your worthy purpose?  What is your life about?

My worthy purpose over the years has been to try to understand the human mind and especially human emotions; to help myself to become more whole; and to help others to benefit from my learning.  That is what drives my work at the Institute for CENT Studies.

~~~

Quick tip:  You can make yourself somewhat happier right now, simply by doing two things:

1. List three to six things you can be grateful for, and read them over three or four times. Then:

2. Change your face into a smile.

"Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes and in the warmth of your greeting.  For children, for the poor, for all who suffer and are alone, always have a happy smile.  Give them not only your care but your heart".  Mother Teresa.

~~~

Mindfulness and Self-Responsibility

Some time ago, I asked myself: ‘What shall I write about in the Happiness blog tomorrow?'  The image that came up - from the basement of my mind (my adaptive unconscious) - was a famous TV cigar advert:

"Happiness is a cigar called *&^%^&*"

This process of asking myself a question and then striving to answer it is what I call ‘thinking'.  Thinking is a process of asking and answering questions, or posing and solving a problem.

But what is the significance of this cigar advertisement?

Well, the advert went like this:  An image would appear on the TV screen of a man reclining in a comfortable chair, and in the background would begin an intensely relaxing piece of classical piano music.  The man would put a long, lighted cigar to his lips, inhale the toxic smoke, and smile as he threw back his head and exhaled the smoke skywards.  The voice-over, at that point, would say:

"Happiness is a cigar called *&^%&^*"

I know lots of people who were influenced by that advert to go out and buy a packet of five *&^%^&*^ cigars, to try to capture that ‘happiness moment'.  I was one of them!

But cigars and cigarettes cannot create happiness.  The first one, or even a few, cigarettes or cigars produces a brain chemistry response which shows up experientially as a ‘nice buzz' - but thereafter we former smokers did not smoke to experience that happiness moment.  No.  We had to smoke to take away the craving induced by the addictive nature of tobacco.  We were hooked by false advertising.

Here's a comment from Richard Nelson Bolles which is relevant to where I am going with this blog:

"You have got to know what it is you want!  Or someone is going to sell you a bill of goods somewhere along the line that will do irreparable damage to your self-esteem, your sense of worth, and your stewardship of talents that God gave you".

If you do not know what you want, your mind will be taken over by those who do know what they want.  This can be done via the TV, radio, newspapers, political parties, cults, other individuals, and on and on.

You have got to develop a respect for your mind, and to protect it from being controlled by others.  I recently read this little parable:

"Imagine you are sitting in a coffee shop, and somebody comes past your table and, using a small bottle of liquid and a dropper, squirts a few drops of a clear liquid into your coffee cup, would you drink that coffee?  No?  Then why would you listen uncritically to the propaganda of people who are trying to poison your mind?"

Perhaps you think I am exaggerating here?  I am not talking about big political issues, like Iraq and Afghanistan, although many people have serious doubts about the stories they have been told by the media and the US and UK governments about those wars.  No, I am talking about much smaller, but nonetheless significant, issues.

Did you see that TV commercial where a little mobile (or cell) phone waddles onto the screen and declares that it is ugly, because newer models have come out with sexier screens?  The sad, crestfallen little phone takes to wearing a brown paper bag over itself, while it scuttles off to the nearest ‘carphone warehouse to trade itself in for a new, sexier model.  That advert, which was designed to make almost all mobile phone owners feel ashamed of their 'outdated' models, ran for months on UK commercial TV channels.  Shame would force them to buy the newer, more exotic models.  But what if they could not afford one?  Around the same time, the incidence of muggings, in which some of the newer, sexier phones were grabbed from richer kids by poorer kids in the street, seemed to skyrocket in number.  Mobile phone muggings in London became such a big issue it took up lots of time on national TV news and current affairs coverage.  Nobody seemed to make the connection with the sad little phone in the brown paper bag.  But this is somehow related to status anxiety:

"'Tis very certain that each man (and woman) carries in his/her eye the exact indication of his/her rank in the immense scale of men/women, and we are always learning to read it'.  Indeed, psychological experiments suggest that we make judgements of each other's social status within the first few seconds of meeting.  No wonder first impressions count, and no wonder we feel social evaluation anxiety".  Wilkinson and Pickett (2010)[1].

How does this relate to thinking your way to happiness?

Firstly, it is the job of advertisers to spread discontent and unhappiness, and to suggest that this discontent and unhappiness can be solved by owning a bigger car, having a sexier holiday, wearing more expensive clothes, having a beautiful, expensive home, and on and on.  None of those claims is true, but the more of that stuff you imbibe, the more negative judgements you will make of ‘yourself' relative to people who have ‘lots of stuff' and who go 'lots of places'.

Secondly, it is your responsibility to stop others putting poison drops in your coffee, and poison ideas into your mind.

Thirdly, you can protect your mind from a lot of pollution by taking a ‘news fast': Stop reading daily newspapers and watching TV news for at least a month.  (And repeat this every few months!)  You will feel a whole lot happier without all that socially divisive, inequality-emphasizing bullshit washing around in the basement of your mind.  You will also free up a lot of time in which you can pursue your own meaningful goals - such as connecting with significant others; engaging in health promoting exercise or games; making a contribution to the lives of others. 

You can defeat social evaluation anxiety by developing anti-materialistic values, like honesty, diligence, integrity, commitment, compassion, contribution, community development, family life, spiritual values, and so on.

If you run into any London School of Economics professors who try to tell you that the solution to unhappiness in the UK is to give a few thousand people 6 to 10 sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy, refer them to the Equality Trust, which has amassed a great deal of data that shows that mental health and drug use problems are a function of greater inequality in the UK and the USA, and in other grossly unequal societies; and that more equal societies have less mental health distress, such as anxiety and depression.

Check out the Equality Trust, at http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/.

Or read the book - The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone - by Wilkinson and Pickett (2010), below.

Quick tip:  If you want to be happier in this unequal world of ours, then start to ask yourself this:  "What can I control?" and try to control that.  Then: "What is beyond my control?"  Give up trying to control the uncontrollable.

I recently read about a man who was 108 years old, who attributed his long and happy life to one thing:  "When it rains", he said, "I just let it rain!"

Try to fit in a couple of brisk walks this weekend.  List three to six things you can be grateful for, and go over them every night before bedtime.  Develop your compassion for others, and offer love to those people who are important in your life.  And try a news fast!

Learn to meditate.

(PS: And if you see some new equivalent of a little mobile phone in a brown paper bag passing before your eyes, look for the immoral villain behind it who is dropping clear drops of poison into your coffee!)

"Happiness is not produced by any kind of cigar, or mobile phone, or any other material thing! Reject the lies!"

~~~

More tips on happiness

Here are a couple of additional ideas:

1. Choose happiness: Up to this moment it may have been true that you had no choice but to be unhappy.  It may also be that you have good reasons to continue to be quite unhappy.  However, it is probably also true that you engage in some unnecessary unhappiness.  Now that I have drawn your attention to these points, you must be aware that you have the option to choose to give up all unnecessary unhappiness.  Here is an example:

* Are you unhappy about your inability to control something that is clearly beyond your control?  If the answer is yes, what is that something?  Okay, now make a commitment to give up trying to control that something which is beyond your control.  Stick to your commitment.

2. Make small changes and/or create rituals: It is not easy to change behaviours.  Remember how difficult it is to make and keep a New Year's resolution.  Don't try to force huge changes in your life by dint of self-discipline.  It probably won't work.  Try these two strategies:

* Identify one thing that, if you changed it, would produce the biggest improvement in your level of happiness.  Now break that down into small easy steps, and make a commitment to begin with the first small step.  Monitor your progress.  Give yourself a little reward every time you complete that little step - day after day after day.  And drop two £1 coins, or a $5 bill, down the nearest drain whenever you fail to make that little step! J

* Create a ritual which will make you happy, such as:

+ Daily meditation for twenty minutes each morning; or:

+ Stop watching TV news, and reading bad news in the newspapers for a month, and instead, start each day by listening to 30 minutes of Mozart's music.

3. Forgive others: Holding grudges and being angry with others because of their crummy behaviours is only going to hurt you, and make you unhappy.  Forgive others for their transgressions against you, once you have done whatever is practically within your power to get an apology or reparation.

~~~

To live the good life, you must be willing to lead a good life

It has been said that human beings are not wired up by nature to want to be happy, but rather to be competitive, and to enjoy defeating others.  In Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) we say this is only half the story.  The Bad Wolf side of human nature is wired up in this way.  However, the Good Wolfside of human nature, which is also inborn in every baby, is wired up to be loving, prosocial, virtuous and happy.  The problem for humans in this and all previous eras (known to us today) is that the Bad Wolf has come to dominate human society and human culture.

However, as Seneca said:

"No (wo)man can live happily who regards him/herself alone, who turns everything to his/her own advantage.  Thou must live for another if thou wishes to live for thyself".

The split nature of humanity is unchangeable.  We will always and only be split in this way, between following a set of virtues, and following a set of vices.  It does not matter if you become the most enlightened and the most holy person on the planet, you will continue to be tempted to behave badly. (Look at paedophile Catholic priests, and the bishops and cardinals who covered for them, for example).  All we humans can do is to make this commitment:

I will live my life from the Good Wolf side of my nature, and I will starve and shrink my Bad Wolf side.

Next we need to figure out how to do that.  The basic answer is this:

1. Identify the vices which tempt you, and which you currently engage in, and decide to give them up. 

2. Identify the virtues that would make your life a shining example to others, and decide to teach yourself to live from those virtues.

Next, all you have to do is train yourself, over and over and over again, day after day after day, to the end of your life, to stick to your virtues and shun the appeal of your former vices.

Perhaps you are attracted to engaging in anger and rage?  Perhaps you are prone to engage in self-pity?  Or laziness?  Perhaps you are overly self-indulgent?  Perhaps you are selfish and anti-social?  Perhaps you spend your time promoting inequality at the expense of the great mass of human beings?  (This is a popular pastime among the most immoral individuals and groups on the planet at the moment.  They love it!)  See the Equality Trust, at: http://www.equalitytrust.co.uk/. 

What would it take to give up these vices, one at a time?  For example:

What would it take to change your response to frustration and difficulty from one of anger to one of acceptance?  How about the virtue of fortitude?  You could tell yourself:

If that's the way it is, that's the way it is.  And those people who frustrate me are not bad people.  Some of them don't even know I exist.  And the others are sleepwalking through their lives.  If I stick to feeling loving towards all people and the world, I will get a better outcome.

If you are selfish and greedy, and/or you promote inequality in the world, remind yourself every hour of this central fact: you were born to die; that you cannot store up anything for you, for in reality you are a mere phantom, passing through a nightmare of your own making.  You are a hungry ghost, trying to eat golden leaves.

And remember what William Inge said:

"The happiest people seem to be those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing".

So find out how to be pro-socially productive, and make a meaningful contribution to the lives of others.  (Not a sugary drink or confection that is going to promote bad health in its consumers; but a wholesome contribution to the wellbeing of others).

Which headstone would you prefer upon you death?

"S/he figured out how to be cunning enough to become stinking rich?"

Or:

"S/he made a huge difference to the lives of other people, and reduced misery and inequality in the world by a measurable amount".

In the process of changing yourself from Bad to Good Wolf, you will discover a form of happiness that you previously could not even have suspected is available to humans:  The happiness of being the Good Wolf, as an act of intention, despite all temptations to stray; and the happiness of returning to your rightful place as one of many equally valuable berries on the bush of life.  (Please excuse my mixed metaphors! The truth is that all language is metaphorical; and you are too complex a being to be definable by a single metaphor! )

Try growing your Good Wolf and shrinking your Bad Wolf, and see what happens to your happiness level.  You'll be pleasantly surprised.  Vice is a source of huge misery.

~~~

The problem with happiness

If you want to be happy all the time, then what you need to do is to contact God and apply for a posting to another universe.  That is not a real possibility for humans in our universe, as far as I can tell.

But does that mean we are doomed to have substantial chunks of time in our lives when we are unhappy?  Yes, most definitely.  But what we mean by that is a subject for conversation.

Last Saturday I went to Manchester with Renata, a wonderful event in and of itself.  That was a source of real pleasure, travelling on a train with my wife, having a coffee and sandwich in a Manchester coffee shop, looking around City Art Gallery, and then back to Waterstone's bookshop to look at Psychology and Philosophy.  I had a great sense of wellbeing. It seemed pleasure would go on and on.

But then I found Arthur Schopenhauer's ‘On the Suffering of the World', first published in 1890.  Here's a little extract from page 11:

"If you imagine, in so far as it is approximately possible, the sum total of distress, pain and suffering of every kind which the sun shines upon in its course, you will have to admit it would have been much better if the sun had been able to call up the phenomenon of life as little on earth as on the moon; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline condition".

We could each make a list of the sufferings which exist on this planet, based on our own experiences, and on the media of TV, radio and daily or Sunday newspapers:  Rape, murder, child sexual abuse, disease, painful disabilities, wars, genocide, infirmity, poverty, hunger and painful death.

I had had similar thoughts to Schopenhauer's a couple of weeks back, while talking to Renata and a friend of ours in a Hebden Bridge coffee shop.  I considered that the pain that people suffer in this world does not justify the "decision" to initiate life on earth.  I asked Renata and our friend to do this thought experiment: "If God approached you at the beginning of time, and told you she intended to create the world, and that it would contain all the suffering we know it to contain, and God asked you, ‘Should I proceed?' - what would you say?"

My own answer was this: "Do not proceed!"  The realization that life emerged in any event, and that suffering ensued, then became a source of suffering for me in the present moment.  I got stuck with gloomy thoughts about the highly regrettable suffering that daily assails individuals and groups on this planet.

Twenty-four hours later, walking by the River Calder with Renata, I clicked out of it.  I suddenly realized that I was saying to myself: "This should not be happening"; as if the thought experiment had been a reality, and somebody had given the green light to proceed with the creation of this vale of tears.  But modern science holds that life arose spontaneously out of a big bang.  There were no thinking beings involved, and so, no matter how regrettable all the suffering in the world might be (and undoubtedly is), that's the way it is.  And if that's the way it is, then that's the way it is.  Although the suffering remains, there is now (for me) no suffering about the suffering.  Or no secondary upset about the fact that life contains suffering.  (This conclusion of mine is one I learned from Dr Albert Ellis, the creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy [REBT]).

Schopenhauer arrived at a similar kind of equanimity himself, but one which speculates about the value of suffering, which he describes on page 5:

"...just as our body would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so would the arrogance of men expand, if not to the point of bursting then to that of the most unbridled folly, indeed madness, if the pressure of want, toil, calamity and frustration were removed from their life.  One can even say that we require at all times a certain quantity of care or sorrow or want, as a ship requires ballast, in order to keep on a straight course".

So we have the Ellisian/REBT perspective and the Schopenhauerian perspective.  To these I would like to add the Buddhist/CENT perspective: that it is not so much what the world is "like" that shapes our general level of happiness, but rather the way we "frame" our experiences. 

Ellis frames unpleasant or noxious experiences by saying: "If that's how it is, that's how it is.  Why tack on a ‘should' about your preferences".  This is a kind of Stoic resignation to the nature of reality.

Schopenhauer frames unpleasant or noxious experiences by saying: "We need these kinds of unpleasant experiences to leaven our pleasant experiences, to keep our feet on the ground, and our egos at a reasonable size.  And how would we manage to structure our time if we had no problems with which to grapple?"

To these two framings several more could be added.  The Buddhist/CENT perspective would go like this:

Frame 1: Life seems to normally be suffering much of the time for all humans.  Therefore if you are suffering, you are living a normal human existence.  So stop wriggling!

Frame 2: Life is without any suffering (for you) provided you avoid picking and choosing:  For even if pain comes, provided you do not choose to be rid of it, you do not have a problem.  All you have is pain, which you can stand.

Frame 3: Life contains both pleasure and pain.  If you are focusing on the pain, you are excluding some pleasures which also need to be included.

Schopenhauer draws attention to a feature of human innate wiring which relates to Frame 3.  He says that pain is "positive" while pleasure is "negative", in a special sense.  The sense in which he sees pleasure as "negative" is this: We do not notice it.  We take it for granted.  It goes into the background.

The sense in which he sees pain as "positive" is this: We notice it.  It visibly and viscerally impacts us.  We do not overlook it.  His example is this.  Given a reasonable day of reasonable health in a reasonable environment, the thing we will notice is "where the shoe pinches"!  Got it?  We notice the little niggles.  We overlook the things that are okay.

This is why Martin Seligman's Gratitude List is so very important.  It asks us to identify three things we can be grateful for.  Three things we appreciate about our day.  Focus on those, instead of "where the shoe pinches".  Whatever you attend to shapes your mood, your feelings, and your emotional state.  If you focus on the suffering in the world, you suffer even more.  If you focus on the pleasure - in a world of suffering and pleasure - what you get is more pleasure.

Today I bought a copy of ‘The Rough Guide to Happiness', by Nick Baylis; in that interesting new bookshop in Crown Street, (Hebden Bridge Bookshop).  This seems to be an eminently sensible book on developing more happiness, and improving wellbeing.  The thing I like most about this book is that it does not claim to have all the answers, but rather to raise some valuable and interesting questions; to detail some interesting and helpful possibilities, which need to be explored.

I have for a long time particularly liked the Buddha's advice: "Find out for yourself".  Do not take your ideas over wholesale from a single guru.  You will get intellectual indigestion, and you will fail to develop your critical thinking capacities.  Nick Baylis echoes the Buddha's advice when he criticises much of the literature on happiness because it often "gives only one point of view of what works". (Page 4).  By contrast, Nick wants his readers to look through a "kaleidoscope of lenses". (Page 3).

Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) promotes six lenses through which our therapy clients are encouraged to view their problems. And I have at least 13 thinking skills role models, including the Buddha and Albert Ellis.

I could not agree more that what we need is to have several thinking skills role models, not one.  And we need to keep exploring the tensions between paradigms of belief about happiness, instead of trying to whittle them down to just one.  Since Thomas Kuhn wrote his work on scientific revolutions in 1956, we have been under enormous pressure to consider that "all there are in science are paradigms", or belief systems, or conceptual frameworks.  Some are better than others, as John Chaffee argues, because they have better supporting evidence.  But none is absolutely true, and many contradictory paradigms may each prove useful and helpful.

So find out for yourself.  What makes you happy?  What makes your family and society happy?  What makes you feel fulfilled?  What enhances your sense of wellbeing?

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Summarizing the Six Windows Model

The Six Windows Model of CENT*** is a powerful tool for eliminating emotional upsets.  It is thus a way to enhance our happiness in a difficult world.

Recently I was asked: "Is it possible to summarize the Six Windows Model on a single sheet of typing paper, so I can carry it around with me, and consult it when I need to manage my emotions?"

That seemed to me to be a tall order, but I decided to give it a try.  Having thought about it, this is what I decided:

1. You cannot summarize the model in a single sheet of paper for somebody to LEARN the process.  To learn the process, and the philosophy behind it, would take several pages.  However:

2. Once somebody has studied the model and got a reasonable grasp of the philosophy behind it, they could carry a single sheet to remind themselves of the slogans on each of the six frames.

This is how that would look:

If you have reviewed these six window-slogans and cannot understand how to use them in your life, then you need to read a full description of the Six Windows Model, here.***  But if you are in a rush, take a look at the Quick Intro to the Six Windows Model.***

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If you want to be happier, remember: Every night before you go to bed, make a list of three to six things you are grateful for from that day.  It might be something you got; something you gave; something you saw or heard; or something (bad) that did not happen!  Choose one of those three items and go to bed determined to dream about it. 

And remember to smile!  

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Coming to consciousness

If you want to achieve calm, serene happiness, you must first of all "wake up".  According to CENT theory, about 95% of everything we humans do is done on automatic, controlled by our "adaptive unconscious".  So whatever you tended to do habitually last week, you will continue to do this week, and next week, and on and on (all other things being equal).  As long as your environment remains as it is, you will continue to respond the way you did in the past, unless you wake up, examine the non-conscious patterns that are driving your life, and take charge of your destiny.

There are some serious defects or deficiencies in the design of human beings. 

Firstly, we are split between the tendency to be good (or virtuous) and the tendency to be bad (or evil, or vicious).

Secondly, we are wired up by our experience to be automata; to be creatures of almost (but not totally) unbreakable habits.

Thirdly, we remain unaware of the degree to which we are non-conscious, and thus we have no leverage to change our lives.

Those three defects/deficiencies (and that is not the complete list) are sufficient to keep you unhappy for all of your days, or a substantial part of each of them.

The road to calm, serene happiness, therefore, at the very least, must involve: (1) Waking up to reality; (2) Committing to live from the good side or our character (called the Good Wolf); and (3) Actively reframing our experiences, using our conscious minds, instead of using interpretations from the past (at non-conscious levels).

How do you do this?  You could study CENT with me.  Or you could study Buddhism and Psychoanalysis.  Part of the journey could involve studying REBT and TA.  Or Positive Psychology.  And there are probably several other reasonably reliable roads to this goal of achieving the Good Life, of calm, serene happiness.

But you most definitely cannot achieve this goal, of becoming fully human, by staying asleep, running on automatic, and being controlled by consumerist and corporate materialism.

So choose.  What do you want from life?  To be a slavish automaton, chasing the fireflies of wealth and fame; or a "free spirit", inquiring into your own nature; and feeling the pleasure of contentment with life as it is.

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To quote this paper in a publised document, please use the following citation: 

Byrne, J. (2011) The Psychology and Philosophy of Happiness.  CENT Paper No.15.  Hebden Bridge: The Institute for CENT.  Available online: http://www.abc-counselling.com/id191.html

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