Independent Versus Dependent Happiness

Before I get started with today's article and an introduction to one of the most important concepts I'll ever talk about, I wanted to mention something that's been bothering me lately: Text-messaging. At a busy intersection today I looked over my left shoulder and saw, through the window of the car next to me, a guy with his eyes glued to his phone. Worse yet, his car had just come to a stop, so he clearly started the text message before the light was red-while his car was still mobile.

Come on people. It's one thing to talk on the phone while driving (which is also dangerous), but trying to write a message with your thumb on a little screen while there are tons and tons of steel death-inducing machines on either side of you is not smart. These days I'm a super paranoid driver. You know there's a text-messaging addict somewhere because you'll see his car streets ahead of you, maniacally swerving between lanes.

With that out of the way, let's move on to what I consider to be one of the absolute most important concepts in my life. It's simple to grasp, but may take a long time to actually implement, and it could mean the difference between a life of constant stress, and a life of freedom. It's important for me to share this early on, so that there's time for you to figure out how to implement it. It may take a while, or it may happen overnight. Alternatively, you may already have a lifestyle like this, without even realizing it.

This evening I went between two of my part-time jobs. The first is actually at a local TV station. This place can be stressful as it involves live television broadcasts, and we are usually short on crew. Dealing with live broadcasts (in this case, a daily news show) means plenty of room for error. A drastic mistake is as easy as pushing the wrong button at the wrong time, and you can get seriously yelled at.

This was definitely an 'off day' and my work left me feeling especially stressed. I was now en route to my second part-time job in an office across the way. Upon arriving I was surprised to find my boss sitting around, working late. We talked for a while, and much to my astonishment our conversation wrapped up with her giving me a much-needed raise.

I felt elated about this. My mood definitely changed from being stressed and sour to feeling much better about myself. And, although this was a good feeling, I needed to take a breather to remember a concept I figured out some years ago, about the danger of something called dependent happiness.

Dependent happiness is, in my opinion, one of the biggest sources of stress in our working, professional and interpersonal lives. In a nutshell, to be dependently happy means that you are generally unhappy and stressed out until a good event comes along which changes everything. For instance: you land a date with that cute girl / guy you know. You are given a raise or a promotion at work. You land a job you've always wanted. Your son is accepted to the football team. You're in college and you land an "A" on that exam.

At this point, please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. These are all wonderful things which you should strive for and damn well celebrate the occasion. But the crucial point is: do you REQUIRE these events in order to be happy? To put it another way: do you have independent happiness, or do you depend on things going 'right' in your life to be happy and without stress?

If nothing is going right in your life, and nothing good has happened in a while, you must avoid allowing this state to create depression, self pity, or any number of negative feelings. The way to avoid this is to work on independent happiness. Regardless of your personal beliefs, I consider this a spiritual concept (and if you have an aversion to the word 'spiritual', you may need to sort out other things in your head first).

Independent happiness is aided by a couple of other concepts. You must be comfortable in your own skin, enough that you're not self conscious and worried about who you are. So you must let go, and just accept things as they are, finding the peace that accompanies this feeling. Next, you must work on finding pleasure in the small things: Talking to someone at the grocery store, the simplicity of nature, your pet cat or dog, appreciating your family. Or, on a much broader sense, to find life itself thrilling-the good, the bad, and the ugly, as one big adventure...One exciting, motion-picture event.

Because here's the kicker: Good events are hazardously transient in nature. For instance, let's say you're unhappy-then you're given a promotion- you're happy again-and then you're laid off from a budget crunch, or a new boss with emotional problems is hired, and he hates you, and he makes up an excuse to fire you. Now you're in big trouble, buddy. (By the way, given our tumultuous economic time, the possibility of being laid off is not hard to imagine, regardless of where you work.) So now you've switched from unhappy, to happy, to downright miserable. Sure, this is going to hurt ANYONE, but if you have an emotional foundation built around being dependently happy on external events, then you're in a poorly constructed building, and when a pillar falls the whole structure is likely to collapse.

Alternatively, if you were even moderately happy BEFORE you had the promotion and BEFORE you landed the job, then suddenly getting axed will not be as big of a deal. You'll be back at the starting point again, which was not a bad place to be. You didn't put all your 'emotional chips' on the poker table, so it's not the end of the world.

So what do you take away from all this? My advice is this: work on building a lifestyle where you are independently happy. Keep good, positive people around you, and lots of other long-lasting things you really enjoy. Take it a step further, and learn to become more meditative and contemplative about life in general, independent of any person or event. Allow the small things to illicit positive feelings. Try to sustain this happy feeling without a single raise, promotion, date, or the vicarious happiness of your son's sports success.

Another great source of independent happiness could be a life goal or mission. If you are intent on building a hospital to help the sick in an impoverished part of India, then what does it matter if a boss fires you or some girl dumps you? You have much bigger fish to fry. Then when something good comes along, feel free to feel great. But just do a quick mental check-in: I'm not dependent on this event to be happy, and I'm not putting all my emotional chips in one place.

Before I get started with today's article and an introduction to one of the most important concepts I'll ever talk about, I wanted to mention something that's been bothering me lately: Text-messaging. At a busy intersection today I looked over my left shoulder and saw, through the window of the car next to me, a guy with his eyes glued to his phone. Worse yet, his car had just come to a stop, so he clearly started the text message before the light was red-while his car was still mobile.

Come on people. It's one thing to talk on the phone while driving (which is also dangerous), but trying to write a message with your thumb on a little screen while there are tons and tons of steel death-inducing machines on either side of you is not smart. These days I'm a super paranoid driver. You know there's a text-messaging addict somewhere because you'll see his car streets ahead of you, maniacally swerving between lanes.

With that out of the way, let's move on to what I consider to be one of the absolute most important concepts in my life. It's simple to grasp, but may take a long time to actually implement, and it could mean the difference between a life of constant stress, and a life of freedom. It's important for me to share this early on, so that there's time for you to figure out how to implement it. It may take a while, or it may happen overnight. Alternatively, you may already have a lifestyle like this, without even realizing it.

This evening I went between two of my part-time jobs. The first is actually at a local TV station. This place can be stressful as it involves live television broadcasts, and we are usually short on crew. Dealing with live broadcasts (in this case, a daily news show) means plenty of room for error. A drastic mistake is as easy as pushing the wrong button at the wrong time, and you can get seriously yelled at.

This was definitely an 'off day' and my work left me feeling especially stressed. I was now en route to my second part-time job in an office across the way. Upon arriving I was surprised to find my boss sitting around, working late. We talked for a while, and much to my astonishment our conversation wrapped up with her giving me a much-needed raise.

I felt elated about this. My mood definitely changed from being stressed and sour to feeling much better about myself. And, although this was a good feeling, I needed to take a breather to remember a concept I figured out some years ago, about the danger of something called dependent happiness.

Dependent happiness is, in my opinion, one of the biggest sources of stress in our working, professional and interpersonal lives. In a nutshell, to be dependently happy means that you are generally unhappy and stressed out until a good event comes along which changes everything. For instance: you land a date with that cute girl / guy you know. You are given a raise or a promotion at work. You land a job you've always wanted. Your son is accepted to the football team. You're in college and you land an "A" on that exam.

At this point, please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. These are all wonderful things which you should strive for and damn well celebrate the occasion. But the crucial point is: do you REQUIRE these events in order to be happy? To put it another way: do you have independent happiness, or do you depend on things going 'right' in your life to be happy and without stress?

If nothing is going right in your life, and nothing good has hap