Because our eyes are primed to notice the negatives, we tend to pick up on, and emphasize, the problems. We generally see past most of the good things in our lives and focus on the few things that aren't. And because we don't like problems, they themselves being a form of pain, we have a natural impulse to try and fix them as soon as we can. This does serve us to a degree but, because we are so focused on the problem, our process of creating solutions has become exactly that - problem-focused.
In this way the problem becomes the center of our attention and confines our thinking to its level. For instance, if we were faced with the problem of darkness, this way of thinking would have us try to solve this problem by trying to fight the darkness - studying it, figuring it out and thinking of ways to overcome it. But the simplest and most effective solution here has very little to do with the problem. For the simplest solution to overcoming darkness is to turn on a light.
Rather than trying to fix the problems that cause unhappiness, what if we focused our attention on creating happiness? The question then is how do we create happiness? With the challenge being that, as with all emotions, happiness cannot be created directly.
I can think of three ways in which we can create happiness for ourselves. The first is by simply doing the things that we love and are passionate about. There is nothing more satisfying than discovering that which ignites you, that which feels like you were born to do, and doing it. Not everyone has discovered what this is for them. But if we could, and if we could direct more of our lives into these areas, we would go a long way in creating lives of happiness and meaning for ourselves. And if we could make a living from these areas, we would never work another day in our lives.
The second way we can create happiness for ourselves is by going beyond our comfort zone. Once we create a comfort zone we rarely step outside of it. This is because of the sense of safety and security we feel within it, with that which is familiar. But after a while of being exposed to the same set of stimuli within our comfort zone, our senses become deadened to them, numbed by their monotony. We find ourselves getting bored, checking out, and trying to find other unhealthy ways to spark our interest and bring a bit of life into our lives. Yet we cling to our comfort zones out of fear of failure, of risk, and of the unknown, causing us to live in the contradiction of thinking big but playing small.
If you think of the last time you felt alive, really alive, I bet you were doing something way outside your comfort zone - putting yourself out there and risking yourself. It is here that we light up because our brain literally does light up with activity at the exposure to a whole new world to be discovered and known. Yes there is more risk here. And yes we don't feel safe here. But safe is not where life comes alive. And when compared with the risk of dying within our own skin from living within our comfort zones, I'll take these risks any day.
We don't see things as they are, but as our eyes have been trained to see them (VIII). The lenses through which we view life determine how we experience it. And because these lenses are largely negative, we see and experience life negatively. Gratitude is the direct opposite of this and is the third way we can create happiness for ourselves. It not only helps us to appreciate that which we do have, but it becomes a lens that primes our eyes to see more of the positives in our lives. The more we notice the positives, the more we have to be grateful for. And the more we are grateful for, the more this lens becomes entrenched further increasing our ability to see the positives. Through doing so not only do we become more grateful for what we do have in our lives, we become grateful for the gift that life is.
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