Changing Yourself vs. Changing the World

You can achieve greater happiness and general life satisfaction by improving the quality of your daily life. There are two ways to do this. You can change your environment or you can change yourself. Each has its merits.

Sometimes the best way to boost your happiness is by changing the world around you.

Imagine, for instance, that you’re sitting at home reading a book. You’re comfortable except for one thing: You’re warm. Very warm. An external condition is causing you discomfort.

You could change the way you’re experiencing this condition (by removing all of you clothes, say), but in this case it probably makes more sense to change the condition itself by lowering the thermostat.

Or maybe you’re sitting in a restaurant writing a letter. Things are fine except that the place is too noisy, which is distracting. Your best bet is to change locations, to change your environment.

The trouble, of course, is that you have little control over the world around you.

My girlfriend was born and raised in northern California. To her, that’s the ideal climate. She’s been in Portland for three years now, and she loves much about the city and the region. But she hates the climate. This is an external factor that’s beyond her control. As hard as she tries, she can’t make it rain less in Portland! (Francis Bacon once said, “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”)

When you reduce the size of your immediate environment — stepping from outdoors to indoors, for instance — you make it easier to control external conditions. You can’t reduce the outside air temperature, but you can cool a room or a building. Even then, exerting influence over your environment requires a great deal of effort and energy.

Usually, the most effective way to boost your happiness isn’t by changing external conditions, but by changing how you experience external conditions.

Instead of reading a book at home, imagine you’re reading in the park. It’s cold. The sun is out, but the January air is chilly. You could head indoors, but you’re enjoying the lovely day. The solution is to change how you’re experiencing the world around you. Put on your jacket and some gloves. You haven’t altered your environment, but you’ve changed how you’re experiencing it.

Or maybe you’re backpacking through Europe, staying in hostels and cheap hotels. Sometimes it’s tough to sleep because the walls are thing and there’s nothing covering the windows. Light and noise threaten to keep you awake all night. Again, the best solution is to change the way you experience the external conditions. If you don an eye mask and wear earplugs, you can rest comfortably despite the chaos around you.

Most people recognize that they have limited power over their physical world, but many cling to the belief that they can change the behavior of the people around them. In reality, changing others can be nearly as difficult. Writing in How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World — a book we’ll discuss at length in the months ahead — Harry Browne calls the idea that you can (or should) control what others do the Identity Trap.

He writes:

[You can’t] assume that someone will do what you’ve decided is right. You’ve decided it from your unique knowledge and interpretations; he acts from his knowledge and his interpretations.

You’re in the Identity Trap when you assume an individual will react to something as you would react or as you’ve seen someone else react.

If you’re unhappy with somebody, there are two options. You can attempt to change the other person, or you can change how you interact with that person. You’re almost always better off changing yourself — altering your expectations, accepting new premises — than you are attempting to change the other person.

Here’s Harry Browne again:

You could make everyone else be, act, and think in ways of your choosing if you were God. But you aren’t. So it’s far more useful to recognize and accept each person as he is — and then deal with him accordingly.

You can’t control the natures of other people, but you can control how you’ll deal with them. And you can also control the extent and manner in which you’ll be involved with them.

The paradox is that you have tremendous control over your life, but you give up that control when you try to control others. For the only way you can control others is to recognize their natures and do what is necessary to evoke the desired reactions from those natures. Thus your actions are controlled by the requirements involved when you attempt to control someone else.

[…]

Each individual seeks happiness for himself in the way that his knowledge and perception indicate to him. He isn’t you; don’t expect him to be.

People suffer a great deal of unhappiness because they assume that everyone wants the same things — or that they should want the same things. But each person is different, with her own knowledge, experience, preferences, and attitudes.

You can improve your quality of life by either changing your environment or by changing how you interact with your environment. Both strategies have their place, but one is generally much easier and more effective than the other. In most cases, it’s difficult or impossible to change the world around you. Attempting to do so simply leads to frustration and unhappiness. However, it’s almost always possible to change how you perceive the world around you. In fact, it’s this ability that contributes most to day-to-day contentment.

Talking About Wealth, Happiness, and Freedom: Join Me This August for a Week in Ecuador!

Last September, I spent a week in Ecuador with two dozen other like-minded folks. We gathered to talk about personal and financial independence. We had a grand time talking “rich people talk”, sharing our stories, and giving advice to other attendees who were just starting down the road to wealth.

The retreat succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Attendees raved about it. And to my surprise, most of us have continued to keep in touch by Facebook, blogs, and email. (In fact, I’ll have coffee, lunch, or dinner with at least four folks from Ecuador over the next month!)

But the retreat wasn’t just transformational for the attendees. It was also transformational for the four of us who presented: organizer Cheryl Reed, sagacious Jim Collins, the dashing Mr. Money Mustache, and me. In fact, there’s no chance that the Get Rich Slowly course would exist in its current form had I not listened to the lessons from the other presenters. (What’s more, the entire year-long series here at More Than Money is a direct extension of my own presentation in Ecuador.)

Pete shares his Mustachian vision for happiness and lifestyle design [photo by J.D.]

No surprise then that we’ve decided to do it again. Twice. Here’s the formal announcement. And here are some details:

The first 2014 chautauqua will take place between August 9 and August 16. At Hacienda Cusin, attendees will gather to discuss financial freedom, happiness, and entrepreneurship with Cheryl Reed, Jim Collins, Mr. Money Mustache, and Jesse Mecham (of You Need a Budget). Register here.

The second 2014 chautauqua will take place between August 23 and August 30. At El Encanto Resort, which rests squarely on the equator, attendees will talk about happiness and freedom with Cheryl Reed, David Cain (from Raptitude.com), and J.D. Roth (that’s me!). Register here.

While I’m sad that I won’t get to spend time with my personal-finance buddies, I know I’ll see them many times in the future. (Heck, Pete will be sleeping on my couch in just a few weeks!) Meanwhile, I’m excited to meet David Cain, whose work I admire. (If you haven’t started reading Raptitude yet, you should.)

Tickets for this year’s retreats are now on sale: week one – week two. Each week-long chautauqua costs $1900, and includes meals, lodging, in-country transportation, and scheduled retreat activities. Each chautauqua is limited to 15 participants.

Jim and Val prioritize their passions during Cheryl’s presentation [photo by Rich]

Obviously, this event isn’t for everyone. At $1900 (plus airfare), these gatherings are for folks who have moved beyond the first stage of financial development. But for those who can afford it, a chautauqua like this is a great way to share ideas with like-minded folks and to gain inspiration. Last year, I got a ton out of talking to so many people who were on the path to financial independence.

Are you interested? You should join me in Ecuador this August!

Note: None of us kept the “profits” from the 2013 event. We used the revenue to pay for expenses — including speaker travel to and from South America — but everything extra was used to fund charitable work for poor people in rural Ecuador. I plan to do the same thing again this year. I don’t need (or want) to be paid for this project, and so I’m happy to forgo my speaker fee.

Shyam and Jesse watch as Carol is serenaded for her birthday [photo by J.D.]

Garbage In, Garbage Out: The Importance of Focus and Attention

The objects and events around us exist in an objective world. They are what they are. Yet each of us experiences these objects and events in a different way. What happens outside must pass through the filter of your subjective mind before it enters your consciousness. You control what enters your consciousness (and, thus, what enters your awareness and memory).

You and I go to the movies. We watch the same film in the same theater at the same time. You enjoy it. You’re wrapped up in the story and moved by the performances. I leave the theater unhappy. “The kid in front of us coughed the whole time,” I complain as we walk to the car. “The seats were uncomfortable and the volume too loud. Plus, I don’t like Nicholas Cage.”

We shared the same experience — and yet we didn’t.

“Consciousness corresponds to a subjectively experienced reality,” writes Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. “A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what actually happens ‘outside’, just by changing the contents of his consciousness.” We choose what we experience, and we choose how we interpret those experiences.

This idea can be challenging to people who possess an external locus of control, those who believe that their decisions and life are controlled by chance or fate or greater environmental factors. (We’ll discuss this in greater detail in the weeks ahead.)

Csíkszentmihályi says that in order to achieve flow and happiness, we must actively create the conditions that lead to it. That means we must learn to direct our focus:

[Happiness] is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control their inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any one of us can come to being happy.

The shape and content of your life depends on how you use your attention. People who master what happens in their heads tend to be happier than those who don’t — or won’t.

“While we are thinking about a problem we cannot truly experience either happiness or sadness,” writes Csíkszentmihályi. “Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and quality of life.”

The bottom line? Garbage in, garbage out. If you allow yourself to think negative thoughts, your experience will be negative. If you want a positive experience, you have to accentuate the positive in all that you see and do.

We can make flow moments more common and become happier people by structuring our focus and attention to bring long-term improvements to the quality of our daily life. There are two primary ways to do this:

Change external conditions.
Change how you experience external conditions.

Each strategy is sound. But one is generally easier than the other. Which path you choose depends upon the situation. Next week, we’ll look at changing the world; in two weeks, we’ll talk about changing yourself.

The Elements of Enjoyment

I found “flow” in the Peruvian Andes. I also tend to experience it while writing. I’ve achieved it while making boxes in a factory, while preparing a speech, and while mowing the lawn. (For real!) Though each of these activities was very different, they shared some commonalities that helped me get “in the zone”. This leads me to wonder: Can happiness be somehow be cultivated? Turns out, it can.

Through Mihály Csíkszentmihályi‘s research into flow (or optimal experience), he found that it’s possible for a person to gain control over the quality of their daily experience, to build enjoyment into even routine and mundane activities. His studies of diverse populations around the world have shown that our best moments contain at least one — and often all — of the following characteristics (some of which overlap):

A challenging activity that requires skill. Flow occurs at “the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenge is just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.” To experience flow, you have to be doing something difficult — but not too difficult.

The merging of action and awareness. Because challenging tasks require full attention, “people become so involved in what they are doing that the activity becomes spontaneous, almost automatic.”

Clear goals and feedback. The vast majority of peak experiences occur during goal-directed actions bounded by rules, such as playing chess, programming a computer, or climbing a mountain. (Or, in my case, mowing the lawn.)

Concentration on the task at hand. To achieve optimal experience, you can’t be distracted. You have to be absorbed in what you’re doing. As you focus, order comes to your consciousness, which leads to contentment and joy. Fear and worry fader away. You are fully present in the “now”.

A sense of control. During the flow experience, you feel in control — or that you could be in control. More precisely, you aren’t worried that you might lose control, a state so typical of much of modern life. To achieve flow, you must believe that you’re able to influence the outcome of the activity.

The loss of consciousness. During a peak experience, you lose sense of who you are. You become one with your environment, a part of a greater whole. You’re no longer aware of yourself as an individual.

The transformation of time. When you’re in the zone, the passage of time is altered. In some ways, it slows — minutes seem like hours. In other ways, it quickens — hours seem like minutes. You lose track of the clock. This “freedom from the tyranny of time [adds] to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement.”

That first point merits a closer look. To achieve flow, you have to find a balance between your abilities and the challenge of the task at hand. If what you’re doing is too difficult for your current skill level, you’ll become anxious. If the task is easy and you’re good at it, it’ll be a relaxing pastime. Here’s a graphical representation of the flow model:

This representation via globoforce.

According to Csíkszentmihályi, “The key element of an optimal experience is that it is an end in itself.” You might need to complete the task you’re working on for other reasons, but you’d do it even if it weren’t required. You’re doing it not for some future benefit, but because the task itself is so rewarding.

When do you encounter flow? Do yo have these peak experiences often? For me, writing is the activity most likely to induce the flow state. Just last week, as I was racing to complete the “Get Rich Slowly” course, I experienced this sort of peak experience. I was working at the limit of my capabilities, and I loved it. What about you?

A Trip Through the Wayback Machine

I’ve been blogging since before “blog” was even a word.

I posted my first web site over twenty years ago, in the spring of 1994. Back then, all that was available was rudimentary HTML (no cascading style sheets!) and browsers like Mosaic and Lynx. We nerds were early adopters, of course, and we made stuff up as we went along.

The earliest versions of my site no longer exist, not even in the Wayback Machine. The oldest iteration available is this version from 24 January 2000. As you can see, at first my personal website contained random stuff about fantasy football, comic books, our book group, and the books and movies I consumed.

You can see in some of these pages — especially my reading list — early stabs at blog-like structure. (If you follow the links to various books, you’ll see my reviews plus links to other resources around the web.)

But my first actual web journal (I used to hate the term “blog”) was my fitness diary from 1997. Midway through losing forty pounds, I decided to chronicle the experience on the web for my friends and family to follow. I followed that up again in 1998 after I gained back ten of those pounds.

Then, on 22 September 1998, I started my first real-life weblog, which I called Great Expectations. In my first post, I wrote:

When I was young I was a writer. I don’t mean that I aspired to be a writer “when I grew up”, I mean that I wrote. I wrote poetry, I wrote stories, I wrote letters. I wrote for myself and I wrote for others. Writing was what I did.

Sometime during college I discovered I was no longer a writer. Sure, I wrote for classes, but that’s not the same thing. Although I wrote some poetry and fiction throughout college, by the end of my Senior year my writing activities had ceased.

For seven years I haven’t written, but now the bug is back.

[…]

Over the course of the past few years I’ve discovered the curious phenomena known as “web journals”. Having read thoroughly those belonging to Karawynn Long and Michael Rawdon, I’m intrigued by the medium and believe it would be a fantastic tool to practice my own writing.

And so it began.

Note: Life is funny. Since writing that more than fifteen years ago, I’ve met both Karawynn and Michael. I like them both. They’re both still writing for the web, and I still read their blogs all the time. Michael writes at Fascination Place and Karawynn writes at both a personal site and a personal finance site!

That first blog lasted only a month. Then life happened. Part of the problem was there wasn’t an automated way to publish the things I wrote. I had to do it by hand. It wasn’t difficult, but it was time consuming.

But a year or two later, I discovered Blogger, a new tool that helped to automate the process of producing web journals — or “blogs”, as they’d come to be known. I resumed writing for the web at my new personal domain, foldedspace.org. Apparently my first post with Blogger was on 27 May 2001, but it doesn’t exist in the Wayback Machine. The earliest post I can find is this one from 05 June 2001 in which I discuss some early work for Computer Resources Northwest (the computer consulting firm that would eventually own Get Rich Slowly!).

Since those early days, I’ve written a lot of material for the web. I’ve started dozens of websites, most of which have fizzled out after only a few days. But on some sites, I’ve produced thousands of words. Or hundreds of thousands. And at Get Rich Slowly, I’ve written over a million words.

It occurred to me last night that I miss some of the things I wrote. Every now and then I’ll stumble upon an old article of mine while googling for something else. These old articles make me misty in a way, and I wish they were gathered together in one place. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Slowly but surely, I’m going to re-read all of the old stuff I wrote. Some of it will remain in dusty corners of the internet. But when I find an important or interesting piece, I’m going to copy it over here to jdroth.com and re-publish it on its old date.

I worry that doing this will cause you all to receive email and RSS updates of this old material. I’m not meaning to bombard everyone with a bunch of outdated articles. I just want to collect some of my favorite memories in one place. If it gets to be too much, please let me know and I’ll find a way to prevent you all from receiving these updates. Sound good? Meanwhile, I’ll be sure to share if I find anything especially fun.

Now, though, it’s time for me to go do some publicity for Get Rich Slowly: The Guide. A blogger’s work is never done…

Note: Ooohh… I just found this version of foldedspace.org. This is what I consider “classic foldedspace” — it’s from the Golden Age of my pre-GRS blogging days. I would love to replicate that look here…

Announcing Get Rich Slowly, My New 52-Week Course to Mastering Money and Achieving Financial Independence

More Than Money is in the middle of a year-long exploration of fear, flow, and freedom. Every Monday, I’m posting an article from what was supposed to be an ebook bout personal and financial freedom. That material wasn’t right for the project, but it’s right for here.

And what was that project? At last, I can tell you.

For nearly a year, I’ve been working to put together a course meant to help people master their money. Finally, it’s finished and ready for public consumption.

Get Rich Slowly: The Course is designed to help people of all levels take better control of their financial lives. If you’re in debt, it can help you get out of debt. If you’re building wealth, it can help you build wealth. And if you’re well on your way to Financial Independence, the Get Rich Slowly course can help you plot your course to freedom.

In the intro to Be Your Own CFO, the 120-page guide that anchors the course, I describe my mission like this:

This guide is different than most of the personal finance books and blogs you’ve read. Instead of assuming you’re a victim of circumstance, I assume that you are the master of your own fate.

Sure, you’re a part of the overall economy and subject to both lucky and unlucky breaks, but ultimately you’re in charge. Your circumstances may not be your fault, but they’re your responsibility. You are the Chief Financial Officer of your own life.

As I mentioned, the course is centered around the 120-page guide called Be Your Own CFO, which took me months to write. (And this year’s content at jdroth.com is built on stuff that didn’t make it into the final product.) But the course contains much more, including:

A year-long email series packed with both practical tips and financial philosophy. Each week, I’ll send you a short message meant to motivate you further on the path to money mastery.

Eighteen audio interviews (and transcripts) with folks like Mr. Money Mustache, Ramit Sethi, Jean Chatzky, and many many more.

An entire built-from-scratch website filled with supporting material. This website is pretty basic at the moment, but will grow much more robust with time.

And, of course, a whole bunch of downloadable material related to the ideas in the course, including PDF worksheets, a handful of spreadsheets (man, those were tough to produce!), and an entire mini-guide on how to use a Roth IRA.

I’m very proud of this Get Rich Slowly course. It feels like a culmination of my life’s work, you know? Everything I know about personal finance has been packed inside, and I’ve done my best to make the information motivational and accessible.

And I’m grateful that the early reviews of the material have been positive. For instance, Productive Flourishing wrote

Be Your Own CFO deserves to be one of the five books on personal finance on your shelf, even if that shelf is digital…The two additional resources on Roth IRAs and negotiating your salary, if applied, are worth the price of the whole product alone.”

I’m glad that I’m finally finished with this project and it’s out in the wild. For one, that means I can relax. But for another, it means I can spend more time around here, writing about meaning and happiness, the two topics that actually feel most important to me. Money is related, sure. But money is secondary. It’s personal well-being that we’re all striving to achieve.

For those of you who are curious, here’s a sneak peek inside the Be Your Own CFO guide, including the introduction and table of contents:

You can read more about the GRS course here.

What are you waiting for? You should check out the Get Rich Slowly course. Let me know what you think, won’t you?

One Peak Experience

I like to travel.

When I leave home, it’s as if I’m an entirely different person with an entirely different life. My thoughts are clearer. My experiences seem purer, unclouded by the things I own and do at home. When I’m in another country, everything I have fits into a 46-liter backpack. I’m not burdened by an apartment full of stuff. I have no pressing engagements and no deadlines. Nobody expects anything of me.

Frequently, I’m surrounded by a language I don’t understand — or understand at the level of a child. Because of this, I’m immune to advertising. I can’t be affected by the news, good or bad. I buy only what I need — toothpaste today, a notebook tomorrow — and am blissfully unaware of the world at large.

I exist only here. Only now.

Because the baggage of daily existence has been stripped away, I’m better able to focus my attention on each moment. There’s less for me to have to worry about, which allows me to feel more in control. When I travel, I enjoy life more. I see more. I feel more.

This enjoyment is intensified when my travels take me outside into nature, when I get an opportunity to hike or raft or play in the physical world.

In 2011, I visited Peru and Bolivia for several weeks. Much of that time was spent trekking through the Andes. Walking with two dozen strangers, I carried my pack through green meadows, alongside slow-moving streams, and over snowy mountain passes.

The trek was difficult but rewarding. I was in peak physical condition, which allowed me to meet the challenges presented by the high altitude and steep trails. Some of my companions became sick. Though I once twisted my ankle, my general good health granted me a sense of control over the experience. Each day, our guide led us on a clearly defined route; the ancient Incan trails helped us stay on course.

Hiking through the jungles and mountain meadows, I enjoyed one of the best periods of my life. As my body strained to carry me across the Andes, I concentrated on the path in front of me. My steps became automatic. My sense of self melted away so that I gradually became one with my environment and with the trail. I’d found flow, that state of “optimal experience”.

At 5350 meters in the Bolivian Andes — a peak experience.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

For fifty years, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced “me-high cheek-sent-me-high-ee”) has studied human happiness and creativity. Much of his work has focused on flow, which is his term for “optimal experience”.

Here’s how he describes it:

We have all experienced times when instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we [feel] in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment.

Csíkszentmihályi says that, contrary to what we might expect, these peak experiences don’t come during passive moments. We enjoy a night out with friends or a vacation to Italy, but these aren’t the best moments of our lives. Instead, “the best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult or worthwhile.”

People are happiest when they forget their surroundings to focus on doing their best at something that challenges and interests them. In short, happiness is produced by total engagement in the pursuit of excellence.

We can experience flow during activities as basic as riding a bike or as complex as building a bridge.

Sometimes flow is achieved through physical activity. Athletes refer to this state as “being in the zone”. People achieve this state of bliss while climbing mountains, sailing boats, or swimming oceans. But even mundane activities like mowing the lawn or baking cookies can produce flow, if they’re done well.

Peak experience also comes from mental pursuits. Many computer become so engrossed in their work that time streams past like water. I experience flow while writing.

This morning, for instance, I’ve been working to complete my guide on how to become CFO of your own life. This will be published next week as part of a complete “Get Rich Slowly” course I’m creating. While I wrote this morning, my mind was so active and so engaged that it almost felt euphoric. I was happy. I couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere other than in front of my computer, writing about money.

I was in a state of flow.

For more on flow, spend a few moments to watch Csíkszentmihályi’s TED talk on how flow is the secret to happiness:

If you want to learn more, pick up a copy of his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

How to Be Happy

Overcoming fear is one part of living life without regret. You do that by being open to new people and new experiences, and by acting even when you’re afraid. Another aspect of a rewarding life is learning to find happiness in your daily existence — and building upon that happiness to construct a meaningful life.

More than two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote, “All knowledge and every pursuit aims at…the highest of all good achievable by action.” What is that good? “Both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well with being happy.”

Happiness, he said in the Nicomachean Ethics, is “the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

To some extent, a good life requires good fortune. Happenstance can undermine the well-being of even the most virtuous person. But Aristotle held that ultimately happiness isn’t a product of chance. You can allow misfortune to crush you, or you can choose to bear the blows of fate with “nobility and greatness of soul”. Although fate may play a role in your affairs, Aristotle believed that in the end, happiness depends upon yourself.

Modern psychologists agree.

In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky shares the results of years of research into what makes people happy. Studies with twins indicate that about half of human happiness comes from a genetic setpoint. We’re each hardwired for a certain baseline level of contentment.

Other studies have shown that roughly ten percent of happiness is determined by our circumstances. Some of these conditions — such as your age or eye color — cannot be changed. But some of these external factors — such as your job, income, or marital status — can be changed.

But the surprising part of Lyubomirsky’s research is that the remaining forty percent of happiness comes from our intentional activity, from our attitudes and actions. It’s a by-product of the things we think and do.

Because circumstances play such a small role in your well-being — and because many of your circumstances are unchangeable — it makes more sense to boost your bliss through intentional activity, by controlling the things you can and ignoring the things you can’t.

I’ve been reading and writing about money for nearly a decade. I’ve been reading and writing about happiness for nearly as long. The subjects are deeply intertwined. Based on my research and experience, I’ve developed not only a philosophy of well-being, but a short summary of the research into how to be happy. This hundred-word piece is a sort of personal roadmap; whenever I sense I’m drifting off course, I re-read it, and I find my way again.

My friend Lisa is a graphic designer. Recently, for kicks, she and I collaborated to create a print based on my summary of how to be happy. It looks like this:

That’s dozens of books about meaning and happiness compressed into one hundred words. Notice that none of this advice involves waiting for someone or something to make you happy. All of it requires intentional activity on your part to increase your well-being. Happiness isn’t something that just happens; happiness is a byproduct of the the things you think and say and do.

We’ll talk a lot more about happiness in the months to come. Stay tuned!

On Second Chances: Why It’s Important to Face Your Fears

This is a guest post from Betsy Wuebker. It fits perfectly with my recent meditations on action and fear. Betsy and her husband Pete are location independent entrepreneurs who currently live on the island of Kauai. She writes on travel, simplicity and independence at PassingThru.

More than forty years ago, I had a conversation with my father. From his hospital bed, he delivered a warning: “Never say ‘what if?’ There might not be a second chance. You don’t want to look back and be sorry.”

Dad died two days later, and his comment was cemented in my memory.

I think Dad sensed what was coming and stepped outside his normal comfort level to communicate a legacy. When my husband’s parents were passing decades later, they lamented the things they hadn’t finished. As they started to say their good-byes, both longed for second chances. Their voices joined my father’s to form a sort of heartbreaking chorus.

In Viralnova’s list of dying people’s regrets, things left undone are cited: not traveling, staying in a bad relationship or terrible job, hesitating, failing to risk. Clearly, unresolved regret can interfere with our sense of contentment to the very end.

When you’re younger, you might hedge decision-making with the illusion of a second chance. There seems to be plenty of time to try new things, to get things right.

But as the years have passed, I’ve gradually learned to make most decisions by following my father’s advice. I think about what I might regret the most, and then choose the opposite. And once in a while, I give myself a second chance. So I moved across the country and back, quit jobs and working for others altogether, traveled, resumed or let go of relationships, and took piano lessons again.

I’m not completely without regrets, but attempting to navigate life with less remorse compels one to settle things. I think in terms of the long run (which, at my age, is rapidly shortening). Can I change it? Do I want to try? Should I let it go?

I make choices by asking, “If I don’t do this, will I be sorry?”

Or, “Does this give me a second chance to get things right?”

Recently I got a letter from my elderly uncle. Reminiscing, he wrote, “I envy your trip to Russia. Always wanted to go there, but never made it.” I perceived only a small regret in this. Whether my uncle visits Russia now makes no real difference. He’s led a very interesting life with long-held other priorities, so letting go of this desire is okay.

Sometimes the universe itself puts forward second chances; if so, I pay attention.

Last year, we moved to Hawaii; it was a second chance at a plan I’d bailed out of in my twenties. I left a friend in the lurch then and I’ve regretted it ever since.

Six weeks ago, I gazed over the cliffs of Normandy. For twelve years, I’d regretted not making the day trip to the D-Day beaches from Paris. I’d have surely regretted not seizing the chance this time.

Regrets require that you accept them and acknowledge what you’ve learned, or act to change the situation. Thoreau said, “To regret deeply is to live afresh.” Second chances can determine whether we live afresh in sadness or joy.