Hey Jeff.. December 2024

For those of you that are new to GEHB, we're more than just a BYU news source. During the season and during busy times for news, there is an obvious amount of BYU discussion and content. BYU will and always be the core of what GEHB does.

But we're than just football and basketball. We're a community of men and women. Part of being a community is looking out for one another and grabbing hands that are reaching out for help. It's a critical component of what we believe in here at GEHB.

One aspect of that is the "Hey Jeff" series of newsletters. Think of Hey Jeff like old 'Dear Abby' articles back when newspapers were a thing. But, unlike Abby, my newsletter response is meant to serve as a starting point for a conversation on our Discord community. People reach out, ask a question, and then are able to take part in the discussion on Discord. I don't have any qualifications, but I can offer a platform and an open ear. If that's what helps someone then I'm thrilled to offer that help.

For the first time in several months, the Hey Jeff inbox received a letter. So, we're back. And with that clarification in place, let's get into it...

Hey Jeff,

Not sure if you're still wanting to do the "Hey Jeff" thing, but I really liked reading your responses to other people, so here I am.  

I feel silly even asking this question, but it's something I've been struggling to find an answer for. 

How do you be happy? 

I've been chasing happiness for a long time, but it's elusive. Part of my problem is that I just don't know how to roll with life's punches. They just seem to hang over my head, pushing me to my limits. I get feeling pretty down. I guess, maybe, my question should be more about stress management. 

Hey man,

This question is such a great question. It's actually something that I've talked about with my wife and with my oldest son recently. I've found it interesting that I've had this conversation with my wife, a grown adult, and my eight-year-old. That doesn't mean anything, necessarily, but it does tell me that happiness is an ongoing thing that everyone is trying to achieve.

My eight-year-old wakes up every morning and makes a cognizant choice to be happy. I don't know what a scientist would call it, but I call it an active choice to be happy. He has to wake up and seemingly remind himself that he can be happy, that he wants to be happy, and that he will be happy that day.

It's been eye-opening to watch him as he has started this. He wakes up, chooses happiness, and then goes out of his way to seek out things that make him happy throughout the day.

He's just a kid and the complications of life haven't set in yet, but 'active choices to be happy' seem like something that can be applicable to any period of life.

My wife has tried to follow the example of our eight-year-old. She started by choosing happiness and then going about her day. The result? Nothing. Literally not a thing changed.

But she realized that she had to follow the lead of the eight-year-old. He didn't stop at saying "I am going to be happy today." That was just the first step. He seeks out things that make him happy every day.

My wife tried that next. And the results have started to come in. Some days that is music and a song that she likes. Some days it's a specific type of breakfast. Some days it's making sure she goes to the gym and gets a workout in. Sometimes it's calling her grandma or taking lunch to a friend in the neighborhood. It's never anything huge, but it's something little that she enjoys and it makes her happy. She stacks up those little happy moments and she's found that she is generally more happy throughout the day.

That doesn't mean that everything is great and it doesn't mean that she is suddenly like a fairy in Snow White and floating on air all day long. But her disposition is a little happier, and I think it's because she's learning to look for happy things.

I went to a speech from Shawn Achor a few years ago and I fell in love with what he had to say. Shawn calls himself a happiness scientist and his belief on happiness changed my life.

He tells a story from his childhood. He was playing with his little sister when they were small kids. He pushed her off of a bunk bed and onto the ground - he hilariously describes the event as him saving her from an invisible bullet that she never saw coming - and she broke her arm when she landed. Quickly thinking of ways to avoid getting in trouble, he said to her, "Oh my gosh, you didn't land like a normal human! You landed in a way that only a unicorn could land! You must be a unicorn!"

This five-year-old girl loved unicorns. At that moment, her brain was torn. On one hand, she had a broken arm and was in more pain than she had ever felt in her life. But on the other hand, she thought she was an actual unicorn and her life's dreams had just come true.

She chose to believe she was a unicorn and she got up and kept playing, thus delaying the inevitable trouble that Shawn was going to find when his parents found out what happened.

It's a silly story, but it is an important principle that showcases the power our brains and choices have. At that moment, this little girl chose to be happy, not in pain, and said. When she made that choice, her brain took over and made her happy.

Shawn recognized the same principle when he got to Harvard some two decades later. He was elated that he was accepted to Harvard. Like every freshman who goes to Harvard, they arrive feeling that they have just accomplished their life's work. Life is good and happy in that moment.

But after a few weeks, Shawn started to see the happiness dwindle and people got more and more depressed. His friends would visit from out of town and ask how anyone could possibly be depressed at Harvard University. It didn't compute to them.

But Shawn saw the competition, the stress, the tests, the pressure, and all of the other things that came with being a Harvard student. Most students quickly lost focus on how great it was that they were living out their dream and started to hone in on the stressors that come with life. When those stressors controlled their thoughts, happiness vacated their minds and depression often filled the void.

This realization brought Shawn to a key point in what became his life's work: Happiness is not something that is controlled by your external circumstances, but rather, happiness is decided by the way your brain processes the external world. He believes that if you can change the formula and the way that you take the world in, then you can change the way you produce outward happiness.

(You should invest 12 minutes into his Ted Talk... it's worth your time. I've read several books and listened to several additional speeches and come away with something great every time.)

Our world is a negative world. The news focuses on the people who were murdered, the corruption of Washington DC, the crime rates of your city, and the conflicts of countries overseas. We teach our kids to look out for signs of depression and anxiety, warn them of the dangers of drug use, explain the consequences of any bad choices they make, and tell them to be careful about strangers. Even within sports, we break down the losses and the plays that went wrong while talking about the shortcomings of the coaches or the players of our favorite teams.

It's hard to be an optimist and it's hard to find the happy sometimes.

We are training our brains to find and focus on negative things, even when we're doing things that are for the protection of ourselves or those around us.

The unintended consequence is that we program our brains to see, feel, and look for negative things. We take that external circumstance, run it through a formula designed to highlight the negative things, and then expect our brains to choose happiness for us when all is said and done.

Even good things don't really make us happy. If we get into Harvard, we get stressed about staying at Harvard. If BYU surpasses expectations, we get frustrated that BYU didn't exceed the next set of expectations. If we get a promotion at work, we immediately start working towards the next promotion. We move the goalposts of happiness so much that our brains can't possibly recognize happiness when it's there to be recognized.

Thanks to Shawn Achor, I realized that a long time ago, and realized how crazy that really is.

So, how do you control it?

You can't control the external circumstances. Life is going to be hard. Disease sucks. Death is unbearable. We never have enough money. Bills continue to get more expensive. There is a ton of pressure to provide for a family. There is never enough time in the day to do the things that need to be done. The boss is always a jerk and the job is always a stressor. We can't control the external circumstances.

What we can control is the formula that our brain takes those circumstances in.

One thing thing I have done, and this was suggested by Shawn at a speech that I sat through, is random stories of happiness. When I am feeling the most pessimistic or the most sad, I take a few weeks and start my day choosing to be happy like my eight-year-old. The way that I do that is to try re-programming my brain to look for happy things.

I invest 15-20 minutes at the start of my work day writing an email or a text to someone that I haven't spoken with in a long time. In those messages to those people, I share a memory or some kind of lesson that I learned from this person in the past. I make sure you describe the memory and re-tell the lesson. I thank them for their influence in my life and I express that I love them.

These messages are always random. I've sent them to aunts that I haven't talked to in years or friends from high school. The message is sent to them, but the benefit is really for me.

Focusing on those positive things to start my day helps my brain remember what it feels like to look for good and happy things. By re-telling a story or telling someone why I am grateful for them, I am making a cognizant effort to find something happy. My brain has to work hard to do it. After doing that for a few weeks, my brain naturally starts the day by looking for happy things around me.

Life is still hard. The job is still stressful. The kids are still loud. The money is still tight. But my brain isn't as hung up on those negative things anymore. Instead, my brain notices that I'm grateful to be living life with my family, that I work with some of my best friends, that the loud kids are actually pretty funny and fun to hang out with, and that I'm able to provide a great life for my family with the modest income that I have.

I'm actively choosing to be happy.

I still have bad days - lots of them.

I still struggle and get into my feelings a lot.

But I have learned that I am capable of finding happiness, I don't have to wait for happiness to find me.

You mentioned that you feel like you're always chasing happiness. To that I say, me too. In fact, I think we all are. My eight-year-old is. My wife is. I am. You are. Everyone is.

Happiness doesn't just happen, we have to make it happen. When I realize that my chase for happiness is actually a good thing and something to be proud of, I find that I enjoy the chase a whole lot more.

I never stop chasing happiness. I never feel like I actually catch it. I have to wake up and start the race to be happy every single day.

But my outlook on the chase can and has changed since I started changing my expectations. I no longer expect to catch happiness from behind. Instead, I've had to find ways to feel the happiness that comes from the chase.

I love you, man. So do a lot of other people. We're here for you and willing to help in any way we can. We're all chasing happiness together.

And you know what? That makes me pretty damn happy.