How to find happiness is a question I’ve asked myself very often over the last ten years and the answer has been somewhat elusive.
Maybe the answer has been staring me in the face the whole time and I just haven’t noticed it, or maybe the solutions I found during my search were fragmented or incomplete?
I don’t know for certain why happiness has eluded me but I’m here to find out and do something about it.
I’m continuing in my search to find happiness and I’m doing it using the book How To Be Rich and Happy.
Before I continue though, I should point out that I’m writing this post with little reference to the book. Yes I’ve read it (and I think it’s great) but for the moment I want to continue for a little while to think and speak (write) as I have done in the past.
I think this will be revealing. I think it’ll help me learn what it is I either do or don’t do that’s making the difference between living a happy life and leading a miserable existence.
Doing so will also provide a reference point so that I can gauge how well I’m developing when I start to use the book.
When I came up with the concept for this particular post I wanted to paint a picture of what I believe will make me happy in life but I’m finding it extremely difficult to do that.
I have no problem making the pictures, I just can’t string them together from beginning to end to tell the story like a movie. Instead I get snapshots of how parts of my life would look and I jump about between random images.
The other problem I encounter is that instead of thinking about what I want, I tend to drift back to thinking about the things I don’t want – the things I’m trying to get away from and this brings me back down to earth with a bump, leaving my mind filled with negative thoughts.
I suppose this happens because thoughts of what I want are most often generated by thoughts of what I don’t like about my life, and I’m confronted by latter all day long.
I’m also aware that I’m terribly conflicted. I think of something that I don’t like but find that on closer examination, it wouldn’t bother me at all if only my circumstances were a little different.
For the moment I’m going to stick with what comes most naturally and reel off a list of things I don’t like about my life, things that make me unhappy, things I want to change.
Most of what I mention here will need further explanation at some point as I only give a hint of what troubles me, but I wanted to shoot off a list to get things moving.
I pretty much take the view that the opposite of what I write below is what would make me happy, so here goes.
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My old career
Thoughts of having to return to my career fill me with trepidation. I left with a very low opinion of the organization, I felt betrayed and in the final weeks I started to develop an aversion to the people and also the physical environment of the workplace.
Unfortunately I feel a certain amount of pressure from my wife to return to my old career, but I know that if I do, it’ll end badly in terms of my career, my home life and maybe even my mental health.
Not being the breadwinner
Having earned since I was 14 years old, I’m used to bringing in the money.
No longer having an income is a bit on the ego. I might not care so much about this if my wife earned enough to support our family in comfort, but the simple fact is she doesn’t. It’s a struggle and it won’t get any better. I’m fully aware that she’s working full time because I chose to bail out of my career. Granted she’s doing so willingly but I know that she has an expectation that I’ll go back to work some time next year.
I have no problem with working, but I don’t want to be a wage slave again.
Failure
This one haunts me. My career nose-dived – I haven’t been great at running the home – I’ve run up some debt – my relationship with my wife has deteriorated.
I feel that failure has become the pattern of my life – or at least this part of it.
Traumatic events 1
My father’s death
Only now, several years after his death am I finally letting go of the injustice I felt when my dad died. I haven’t delved too deeply into why I felt the way I did, but my reaction to his death caused me huge problems at home and at work. All I can say right now is that the pain has gone, but the memory hasn’t.
Traumatic events 2
Work related events
There were episodes in my working life when I had to deal with death. For the most part it wasn’t a problem but a couple of incidents affected me very badly. You’ll forgive me for not going in to detail, but for now, I’m reluctant to share those details. However, I may do at some point in the future.
Claustrophobic living part 1
Our house is a reasonable size so I really shouldn’t complain – I should be grateful for what I have – but in reality there’s still not enough room. In our semi-detached house we have three bedrooms and one bathroom, a living room and a kitchen/diner.
The back garden is small so there’s no room to ride bikes or trikes. No room for swings or a slide. There’s no room to play football or any ball games for that matter.
I feel agitated and anxious when the kids play in the garden because naturally they want to screech and shout and play noisy games. I want them to do that stuff too but the neighbors are so close I keep having to quieten the kids down. It’s ridiculous.
It’s the bedroom situation that bothers me the most though. We have the three oldest children in one bedroom and the youngest is on her own in another. It’s a pain. The rooms are small, there’s no personal space for them and no storage space for their possessions.
In the evening it can take an hour for them to stop talking and settle down to sleep – an hour when instead of refereeing fights I could be working. If one of the three wakes at night, they all wake. When one of them wakes early in the morning, the others are woken too.
Claustrophobic living part 2
I feel enclosed and trapped. There’s nowhere for me to retreat and be alone. I crave solitude, I always have. Having to be with people all the time – even my family whom I love dearly – causes all sorts of problems the biggest of which is… if I can’t retreat physically I do it emotionally and I’m a nightmare to be around.
Claustrophobic living part 3
Being in such close proximity to neighbors torments me. Where I live there isn’t a lot of space between the houses, and I know it’s like that or worse for others, but you can’t even have a conversation without it being overheard. I’m a private person and I don’t like everyone knowing my business and frankly I don’t like to know anyone else’s business either. Perhaps I’m being over-sensitive, but some of the neighbors think nothing of letting off fireworks at 1130pm whenever they have parties. It sucks that my peace and quiet is dependent upon my neighbors and theirs on me.
My wife
There are problems in my relationship that go right back to the start. Much of it boils down to our joint inability to communicate with each other when it matters most. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that I don’t love her, but I’ve frequently felt that she doesn’t love me and over the years I’ve harbored a degree of resentment towards her. I’m conscious that some of this resentment is misplaced and undeserved but I feel it nonetheless.
More recently the strain in our relationship has been caused by my immersion in my internet business. As I’ve said elsewhere I’m yet to make any profit and I’ve been at this for 18 months or so. Some of my failure I attribute to her lack of support or understanding. This is definitely something I’ll elaborate on fairly soon.
Even as I type this, I’m doing so without her knowledge, which brings added pressure because I feel I’m keeping secrets.
Sex life
This probably comes under the category of TMI (Too Much Information) but so much of my happiness is tied up in being physically close to my wife. OK so we’ve had four children in quick succession and I understand that romance isn’t always top of the agenda. But somewhere along the way the rules were changed and nobody bothered to tell me.
Don’t get me wrong, when it happens it’s very good, I haven’t got any complaints there, but sometimes it’s months before it happens again. I feel resentful (probably wrongly) that my love life hasn’t been better over the years and the lack of physical closeness has lead to a lack of emotional closeness.
My children
I’m seriously in two minds about moaning about my kids openly because it seems like such a crappy thing to do. I’m not even sure I really believe they’re even the tiniest part of the source of my unhappiness. I think it’s much more my failures with them that leads me to mention them here, but I’m going to leave this in for now and make sense of it later.
My mother in law
Having her living with us, albeit in an adjoining annex has been a very painful experience for me. It’s selfish I know, but I don’t want to share my home with another adult, aside of course from my wife. It just doesn’t work well.
I often feel that she intrudes, and maybe that’s because she always seems to appear at the worst possible moment. I feel bad about the way I feel about her, because the poor woman doesn’t even need to open her mouth to annoy me, her mere presence is enough. But when she does talk to me I’m often left seething. It’s stupid really because she’s not malicious in any way and before she came to live with us I liked her and was more than happy to be in her company.
Friendships
Over the years I’ve killed off most of my friendships and I’m fairly certain I’ve done it on purpose. In some way I thought I was protecting them from my unhappiness and the moodiness that goes with it, but I shunned the very people I needed for support when things were really bad.
My attitude
As much as I would like to believe I’ve tried to look for the positives in my life I’ve found it all too easy to spend time wallowing in self pity and endless cycles of needless worry. I regularly feel antagonistic toward people who look at me “the wrong way” or speak to me in an off-handed manner.
My moods control me and bad moods are much easier to trigger than good moods. It’s a pattern of behavior I’ve learnt over the years and a pattern of behavior I want to change ASAP.
My weight and fitness
Being overweight is a constant reminder that I’ve lost some of my self discipline and personal pride. I lose weight only to put it back on again. I injure myself during exercise and then fail to get back to it when I’ve recovered. I ashamed to say I don’t even take my children swimming because I have love handles and a belly. Do I really care what other people think? Evidently I do.
I can’t feel good about myself when my waistband feels like it’s cutting me in half. The image I have of myself in my head doesn’t match what I see in the mirror.
Money
I’m reluctant to mention this because like so many others I believe that many of my problems could be solved if I had enough money. Of course it could also make them worse.
Maybe being filthy rich wouldn’t solve some of the underlying issues, but it would relieve some of the symptoms and give me some breathing space.
In truth I don’t desire to be obscenely rich, I’m not sure I even want to be ‘rich’ at all, but I do want to be comfortable and be able to provide for my family now and in the future.
Throughout my life I’ve mismanaged my money, I just don’t care enough about it to worry – except when my inattention has made it so bad it’s all I can think about. My attitude towards money is off but I’m yet to figure out why.
Fighting an uphill battle
I’ve known that I’ve been unhappy for years and I’ve continually tried to change that.
I don’t feel that I’ve just sat back and let it happen to me. Whilst I admit I’ve often spent too long feeling sorry for myself, I’ve always come out of it with a determination to make my life better.
I’m just utterly frustrated that after all the effort I’ve put in I haven’t made the breakthrough.
What’s worse, I’m frightened I may never make the breakthrough and will just have to accept that this is as good as it gets.
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So there we are. These are only some of the things buzzing around my head.
There are other things but it’s difficult to find clarity of thought with so many emotions and thoughts fighting to be recognized.
When I started writing this post I intended for it to be an upbeat description of what would make me happy in life, an ideal, something to aspire to, but it hasn’t quite turned out that way. I changed the purpose of the post and tried to identify what would make me happy by looking for the opposite of unhappy. I know now that I haven’t accomplished that. Instead I feel that I’m just going round in circles and identifying more conflicts and questions.
I mentioned near the top that I was writing this post with little reference the book I’ve based this site around – How To Be Rich And Happy (Read Sample Chapters Here) - and in doing so maybe I’ve identified the mistake I’ve been making for years. I’ve been trying to work it out on my own… and failing.
It comes back to the same problem I’ve faced when trying to work things out for myself when I’m in turmoil… it’s not easy and it’s overwhelming. But at least it reminds me of why I turned to the book for help.
It’s not all bad. I don’t think I’ve wasted my time entirely. I still think it’s a good way to build a benchmark to work to and measure success against. Plus it gives you some further insight into my life.
Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Andy.
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Thank you, Andy
