awaiting disaster

Image: The Book of Bunny Suicides

It makes me uncomfortable when things are going well for too long. And at the moment I truly don't have any legitimate complaints. Nauseating, right? Of course, I assume this means that something terrible is about to happen. Isn't that how it works? We're each allowed a finite amount of happiness and once the supply is depleted, we're destined to live out our days in a sea of turmoil and adult acne. No? Well, that's what I'm afraid of.

More likely, it will be this irrational fear that eventually undoes my happiness. The ultimate in self-defeating, self-fulfilling prophecies. So how can I keep that from happening? Research in Positive Psychology has shown that we can retrain our brains, literally rewiring our neural pathways, to be happier. In one of my favorite TED talks, Harvard psychologist Shawn Achor says, "It's the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality." In other words, it's not our external world that determines our happiness, but how we perceive it. "When we're happy, our brains are more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient and productive." The key to happiness is not success. It's the other way around. But how do we get there? According to Achor, there are five simple steps:

1. journaling (about one positive experience everyday)
2. gratitudes (three, everyday)
3. random acts of kindness
4. exercise 
5. meditation

Could it really be that easy? I guess if you actually manage to do them. I wouldn't know. As it turns out, it's extraordinarily hard to create new positive habits. Bad habits? No problem. But the things that may actually make you a better person are hard work. Another one of the many paradoxes of the human experience. Positive habits take 21 consecutive days to establish. I made it three. And then a whole week. After that, well, you know, things come up.

And after all, as I said, I'm already pretty happy. I don't want to overdo it. But when things do inevitably go to shit, at least I'll have something to buoy me on trips to the drugstore to buy Retin-A and cat litter.