Carbless Happiness

During my email spelunking trip a few days back, I ran into a chat conversation I had with my brother in law at the start of the year. There is irony here, which I will explain. I hate to once again come to this, but this epiphany came to me in the midst of a Sunday school lesson as I chatted with my 16-18 year old students about life. The lesson that kicked off this epiphany dealt with gratitude, an appropriate lesson for the Thanksgiving season.

It started with the question, “why are we ungrateful?” It’s a basic question. Before moving on, answer this question, “why am I so ungrateful?” I know you are, even if you think you are not. We think plenty of wonderful things about ourselves that are not true and this happens to be one of them, which makes it a really difficult question to answer truthfully. So, here is my answer and some thoughts that came during the lesson we discussed last January.

I’m ungrateful. I know this because I want more, more than I have, more than I need, more than I deserve. When I ponder this truth I can see how its normality has led me by the nose into the murky depths of the well of selfishness. Yes, I’m greedy. It’s normal. Right? “Place the mask over your face before attempting to secure the mask to your child’s face.” “Every man for himself.” “Know the word before you preach the word.” “Remove the beam from your own eye…” Selfishness is key to survival and often a key to knowledge; this is self-evident. As Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” A self-first mentality can be the most important of beliefs. However, it is this same natural instinct of survival that becomes a societies built-in self-destruct mechanism. If this doesn’t make sense, just consider the recent economic debacles we have suffered through because of nonsensical risk and self-first policies. Selfishness was the progenitor of this mess. Alan Greenspan believed that the heads of banks would look after their investors more so than themselves. In essence, he believed that they would act on the behalf of the many and become self-regulating. How ideal and stupid at the same time.

Selfishness unchecked over-stimulates the risk side of the desired reward equation. Call it a midlife crisis. It doesn’t matter. Eventually, our unchecked selfishness leads to that moment where we naively ask, “how did I get here.” The answer – by choice.

So, what to do?

Hypothesis: I want more and in wanting more I rationalize my need for more by conveniently misremembering or failing to assign value to what I have.

There is a simple test. It’s Christmas time. Write me a list of everything you received last year and who it was that gave you each gift. Tell me how it made you feel and what you did with each gift and what you said to this person when you received it. That’s right. You can’t. Although, you will remember a few gifts…the ones that really meant something to you because you assigned it value.

I spend little time considering what I have and what I have been given, and who it was that provided these things, to enable my justification for acquiring more. “That shirt doesn’t fit very well, I should grab another one. We don’t have any food I like; I should grab something I will eat. I work hard so I deserve this new flat screen tv. She’s being mean to me, it’s okay if I cheat this once. I only want what my neighbor has, nothing more. If I get one more promotion, then I’ll be happy. An extra room where we can store all of the stuff we never use would be very useful. We haven’t spent that much money this year on vacation, we can afford a little bit more. That’s why we have welfare and soup kitchens; this bum on the side of the street doesn’t need my money. Nice guys finish last; I’m taking the last one.“

All together now: we consciously or subconsciously decide not to remember what we have or where we came from to justify our selfish desire to acquire more, which is all proof of our dire ungratefulness.

Does that make sense? It’s hard to fathom a world of grateful human beings. People that spend time considering each thing they earn or are given; people that acquire stuff out of need, instead of acquiring more debt in a vacuous quest to vanquish the infinite desire for more. You can’t cut selfishness out of your body. It is a part of your genetic code. Learn. You can understand your selfishness. You can decide to remember. You can spend time thanking and remembering, instead of searching and buying.

Remember. Write it down. Read your list each day. Thank those people, thank that God, or thank that world or those seemingly random events that brought you to this point. Make it a habit. I promise, the more you do this, the less you will feel like you need to have or acquire to be happy.

Being grateful is not about fulfilling some “become a better person” roadmap. Instead, being grateful is the key to satisfaction and happiness. Without it, no amount of money, prestige, awards, religiosity, or power will ever suffice.

Now if I could only get an iPhone, I'd be so happy...

It’s a challenge I give myself every Sunday. And now that I’ve been teaching for almost five years in this same calling, I no longer doubt its importance. I apply the same fighting of assumptions and the same contrarian attitude to my lesson preparation. It’s less about cutting out quotes, and more about waiting for the lesson to reveal itself. It sounds weird, but it works. Two Sunday’s ago, in this same fashion, I came to the following conclusion: living a little bit more like sand would help us all.

If you haven't heard the story about the man that built his house upon the sand, then I can't help you. Sand, I went on to say to the class, has been greatly mis-represented in this one story, leading us all towards a heavy reliance on the physical concept of rock. Of course, not an actual rock, but on the physical characteristics of rock: solid, firm foundation, reliable, confident, immobile, weathered, etc. However, we tend to forget it's somewhat negative characteristics: immobile, hard-headed, stuck, rough, sharp, disdainful, oppressive, egotistical. As is typical, rock has a hard time understanding that it has negative characteristics...because well, it's rock.

Sand, while it can be blown to and fro by the smallest of winds, and it is unattached and selfish in it's bearing attaching itself at a mere whim to other sand around it, only to leave it's fresh companions to other greater/lesser pursuits simply because it can, sand has some fantastic characteristics. Sand can morph. One day it can be a sand castle and the next it can be a hand-print...or a footprint. Sand is easy going, eager to please, open to new ideas and new places. Sand can be pounded without shattering. It can be twisted and turned without damaging it's neighbors. While rough at times, it can with little effort become transparent and beautiful.

Although, Sand presents fear. Rock is something that can be understood, located, stamped, and cataloged. Sand can be elusive (ever tried to find that piece of sand that made it's way up your bathing suit?), gritty, uncomfortable, and it can shift with surprising speed which can be disconcerting. Sand is an unknown that frightens Rock, especially as Rock perceives the Sand's tendency to forcibly weather it, to smooth it's edges, and in essence to change it's shape, without its consent.

So what then?

If you are a bit too much Rock these days, let yourself be moved, let yourself experience new things, let yourself let go of the obsessive control you believe is necessary to remain on your designated path. If you are a bit too much Sand these days, commit to an idea, commit to real changes in your life, test a principle.

And remember, every life needs a sandbox.

Admittedly, I'm the type of person that gets intense personal satisfaction from proving skeptics wrong. A perfect example has to do with spanking children. Every person I told that I wouldn't be spanking my kids gave me this big smile and a big we'll see how long that lasts look (or sternly warned, 'you have to be a parent not a friend'...idiots). It's that supposed wisdom that raises the hairs on my neck and has been a part of my strong dis-taste for authoritarian (e.g. Alphas) figures throughout my life.

So, after reading some headlines about some recent pop culture experiments in marriage, it got me thinking: I wonder if I can find someone that disagrees with this idea...come on now, tell me I can't do it. :)

Is my daily happiness a factor of doing what others think can't be done? This would explain a lot about my desire to surprise instead of simply fulfilling the status quo (remember those ten dozen roses in Vegas Teri, and all of those sweetest/valentines/other lame holidays without a single flower?). A monkey can repeat a task over an over again. But to seek out why the task is being done and how to do it better, to thirst for new challenges and knowledge, to scale new heights in one's personal development, that's something unique, that's something to live for. Complacency (a form of wickedness in my book of life) never was happiness.

I’ve never felt that uncomfortable/misplaced, unless you count freshmen or sophomore year in High School during my mandatory aquatics class; those damn blue swim trunks were unforgiving in every way imaginable...

So, why did I feel uncomfortable? I’ve never been that close to so many well dressed and under dressed women at the same time; pajama tops all the way down to high heels. When I add in the nachos, drink, and the relative obscurity of the whole thing, it starts to sound fun in the guilty pleasure kind of way. But, no, it was neither more nor less than a movie to me. However, I came to realize, this was so much more than a movie to everyone else in the theater.

Sex in the City is the hallmark of a cinema movement towards protagonist female characters that suffer at the whim of the antagonist male. I remember watching my first episode and thinking, "wow, I don't know women like that..."…at least that’s what I thought before going to the midnight premier of Sex in the City, the movie at the request of my wife.

If you are a guy, think The Matrix. If you are a girl…well, um, I’m not sure how to explain it beyond think about the men in your life and their relationship to the original, The Matrix. I was at the opening night of the Matrix Reloaded, which was as far as I know the top grossing opening weekend for a rated R movie. I remember the buzz in the theater as I watched the first Matrix on my laptop before it began with hollers from behind me to “hold it up so everyone else can watch”. The screen darkened. A hush fell over the audience. Then came the tell tale cascade of glowing green digits and the audience exploded.

Fast-forward some five years; there I was at the premier of Sex in the City, the Movie. Honestly, I was caught off guard by the audible gasps, moans, laughing out loud, and huge intakes of breath at the mere name of a famous designer, a slighted female, a dress in all of it’s…dressy glory, or a pair of shoes. And right beside me, my dear wife gasped too. At one point I had to check myself, because my chuckles at all of the sighing and gasping around me threatened to garner me the unwanted stares of hundreds of offended females, and had already earned me a few slaps from my smiling wife. Honestly, I never imagined that a dress or a pair of shoes could be occasioned with so much feminine admiration. But then it clicked. This must be the same reason why stop-motion filming, the bullet flying over Neo as the camera spins around him, and the utter coolness and “wow’s” that are heard across "masculinandom" are so incomprehensible to those of the typical feminine persuasion.

“Whoa, did you see that?” - “Oh no he didn’t!”
“That punch!” - “Those shoes!”
“Those guns!” - “That dress!”
“Nice leather body suit!” - “Mr. Big!”

I’m not sure how to quantify what I gained through my experience, although I do know whatever it was, none of my buddies have been one with the feminine mind for a full two plus hours (something that typically lasts them no more than five or ten minutes).

Well, it’s not that I haven’t been thinking. Instead, I’ve been working. All of the time. Working. And I realize that I’m just as susceptible to the hysteria of the day, as it pounds itself into my head. However, I’m growing tired of the middle class whine (which whining appears to have a significant effect on our children’s perception of what they want in life). It’s starting to grate on my soul. I teach a Sunday school class, one of the most fulfilling parts of my week, and we discussed personal goals, poverty, humility, and just what it is we want from life. Not one girl or boy in my class had ever experienced poverty (not even close), but at the same time not one told me they would like to live in poverty (being poor sucks…being rich is awesome, right class!). Who would right? Who wants to beg for their next meal? Who wants to worry that their children don’t have clothing, medicine, food, shelter, and the means to provide some modern comfort to themselves and to their family? No one. No one wants it to be difficult. No one wants to fall down. No one wants to lose. No one wants to be sick. No one wants to ~pick another thing that you can choose to not want~…funny how that works. Which is where the middle class whine is shown to be the childish notion that it is.

What is the middle class whine? Just turn on Dateline (or any program that uses sensational headlines to encourage your viewer ship). From the water we drink, to the latest foreclosures, the world is about to end…apparently. We are in a recession! Ah!!! Our country is breaking down one bridge at a time! It’s the gays! It’s California! It’s the lack of morals! The end of the World is at hand!!! I’ve heard people pine for the 1950’s…seriously, the 1950’s! Are we that stupid? If I didn’t know better, I would believe that Ahmadinejad was at my very doorstep attempting to force me to convert or die the infidel death. In fact, there is delicious irony in every headline. “Americans are Stuck Staycationing; How Long Will It Last?” Whine. Whine. Whine. Oh poor us. Let’s all cry together. Let’s get it out. “It’s not fair! Mom!!!!"

It’s sick. It really is. We whine about the very things that make us a blessed State in the world. Consider our literal fortunes that we spend on our whining on a daily basis; think through that again. We whine away our spending. Consider the ease of entrepreneurship that exists here. Consider how free we are to act on this world and to change it, instead of being acted on and changed by it. Yes, working is tough. Yes, debt sucks. Yes, we’d like to see more of our friends and less of our co-workers (well, I guess that depends on your co-workers…). But the next time you grab McDonalds on the way to the movies, after filling up your car for the week, once you left your kids with your babysitter, to see the Batman, the Dark Knight or to grab a drink with your buddies without fear of religious and social induced persecution or death, consider the blessed life you lead.

Two oceans and a whole hell of a lot of guns protect you and me from the end of the world. But that’s just it. That is what has made America possible. Individuals like you and me that want to be free and we will damn the country to hell that ever tries to take that away. So, stop whining. Whether you believe in God or not, you have been blessed to be part of this country, at this time in the world’s history (yes, even with George Bush as our president and his ridiculous lackey mentality). No matter what the revisionists claim, it has never been more wonderful to be an American than it is today. Can we commit to stop whining and supporting the cultural machines that take advantage of our irrational pessimism? Write to talk show hosts. Write to newspapers. Turn off that television. Avoid the hour-by-hour slanted historical narrative that can be found on cnn.com, msnbc.com, and foxnews.com (ew, that will be tough).

Here is my shoulder. Let's cry on it. Let's talk about how terrible life is now that we have to cancel our cell phones, our cable, and our high speed internet so we don't go too far into debt...or maybe we should just grow up a little bit more. Yeah - that's it. If we could just mature a little bit every day, we might stop complaining about how it sucks to have such a grand opportunity in life.

stop...Okay. My whine is done.

If you haven't tried Google Reader, and you want a never ending supply of updated news, try it out; it appears to be an excellent source for our search for happiness. Here are some recent finds such as longer life for some short people. Hey Babe, you might have a longer time to search for happiness, doesn't that make you happy?

Check this one out - All I can say is what the fat? I'm happy for this article, because I have a hard time getting people to believe me, even after they have read the hundred plus pages of my book. I'm happy that individuals are studying the cold, fat facts. Although, I wouldn't mind getting published before these damn articles I read about my Fatties make my conclusions less pertinent. Fatties out there, I feel your love handles.

And how about this - I would imagine I know some girls that would disagree with this article.

Compared with sexually harassed workers, employees on the receiving end of raging-boss behaviors and other forms of workplace aggression reported lower overall well-being, less job satisfaction and less satisfaction with their bosses; they were also more likely to quit their jobs.

While some might point to this as another sign of the emasculation of American culture, I'm pleased with the recognition that the workplace should no longer be a haven for the Alpha-holes among us.

Teri said something the other day that is quite profound, something that went like this: Matt and I don’t like each other much these last few weeks, but we’ve never stopped loving each other. As I contemplate Happiness and our society’s obsession with creating a day of relationships celebration, I’ve discovered that as I look for the happy things in life, I'm doing just fine. I’ve tried to explain to myself what I’m looking for these last weeks, and I think Teri just gave my search new meaning.

Let me explain:

It's not about learning to love my life or the finding of happiness being an end. Simply, I want to like my life a little more from day to day...it's cliche-ish: find the silver lining, improving my quality of life, making the best of it, living in the moment, smelling the roses...ugh. I feel like the last man in a marathon, attempting to sip the final drops of water from the smashed paper cups littering the asphalt.

I guess I'm searching for the day to day things that put me out of sync with what I know is real. Take the Atkins diet. I know it changes how I think about my life day to day. It affects how much I like my life. It makes abnormal out of normal. My weight does the same. My need to be right. A surprise love note on my car seat at 6am does too. Happiness and sadness will come and go. Big things will happen. But it's life in between those moment, life in the cracks that means the most to me, and making those small, forgotten moments happy ones seems very possible to me. It's funny, when you think about it, you are reading straight from a crack in my life.