#22 The Happiness Taboo

Ep 22 Between the Ears - The happiness taboo

Welcome, I'm Arnold Beekes and I enable you to have a better life between the ears because your inner state creates your outer reality. Today's topic is called the happiness taboo. It's an article which I read yesterday from Scott Berry Kaufman.

He's a well-known psychologist from the U.S. and I really want, well, you can look it up, search for it, the happiness taboo by Scott Berry Kaufman. But the main thing and why he has labeled it the happiness taboo is that apparently he found an article from Abraham Maslow, the very famous psychologist who wrote the pyramid of needs, although he never designed the pyramid, but that's a whole other discussion. But Maslow wrote in 1969, so a long time ago, he wrote an article about how people are genetically drawn or not drawn to happiness.

And while he wrote then a chapter in his book, he chose not to publish it. He didn't want people to know because he expected that, well, not good stuff would come out of it. And what is his main finding is that a substantial portion of how happy you are is the look of the genetic draw.

I'm going to repeat this conclusion. A substantial portion of how happy you are is the look of the genetic draw. So partly it's in your genetics, how happy you are or even how happy you can be.

And since then there's been quite a lot of research that's mentioned in the article that proves that this is correct. This is incredible, isn't it? And I think by not publishing this, there's so much suffering which has been created to people who are not as happy as other people. And what do you do then? You think there's something wrong with me.

I am not good enough. I'm not as happy as my neighbors, as my friends, as people in my classroom, as my colleagues. I did something wrong.

There's something wrong with me. I'm a failure. I'm not good enough.

I think we recognize that reasoning, all of us, but it's especially hard when in this case, because people say to be happy, well maybe they say you gotta exercise more or you gotta you gotta read this book or you gotta keep a gratitude journal. And then you do all those things and still you're not overly enthusiastic each day. You're not very happy.

And what do you think, what is the message which the whole psychology industry, the self-help industry, has been giving us? It's your fault. You should do more gratitude. You should read more books.

You should do these daily practices. It's like you didn't work hard enough. Well, I know about a lot of these exercises and this applies not only to happiness but to also to business things.

Well, I did and a lot of other people did. You do all kinds of exercises where people say if you do step one to seven or something like that, then your internet business will be in the millions. Well, I exactly did step one to seven and I'm still a poor guy.

Then maybe let's try another, another book, eight steps to financial independence, financial freedom, all of these books. You know them. Then when you go in any bookstore in the section that they come screaming at you like follow my plan and you will be a millionaire.

Well, in my case it didn't work. So what do I start doing? I start doubting myself. I start thinking maybe I shouldn't be an entrepreneur.

What's wrong with me? So that's the business side. Let's think about the happiness side. I was thinking about my family.

I see nobody was happy. Well, occasionally when something happened or yes there was now and then a laugh or so, but most of the time people in my family were not happy. You could think what's wrong with me? I'm just not good enough.

I don't deserve it. Not even going into religious things like well, you're a sinner. You're getting punished for what you did in your previous life and now this article pops up which has already been known since 1969 that your genetic draw was unfortunate.

That there's part of your well unhappiness is caused by your genetics. So that proves that thinking like I'm not good enough is a wrong thought. There's nothing wrong with the work you did, the practice you did, the exercise and still you didn't get, still you're not super duper happy every day.

I think it's kind of a crime by not publishing this stuff and people know that. Can you imagine like what's it 57 years and how many people including myself and people I know who feel stupid, who feel not good enough and now they say no, a substantial portion of how happy you are is the luck of the genetic draw. It doesn't mean you can't be happy, but there are other people who are always happy.

Well that's their genetics and not doing day and night gratitude exercises. So I'll let it up to you whether you decide this is good news or bad news, but anyway it helps you in reconsidering the fact that you think I'm not good enough. That's just not true.

That is absolutely not true. While at the same time it proves what I'm saying all the time is that you and I and everyone else is unique. So assuming that one practice or one exercise works with one person, it's wrong to assume that if another person does exactly the same exercise there will be the same output.

No it won't. It proves that we are unique human beings and some of us are well let's say more easily happy and for others it's very hard work and you can replace happy with I think any topic and it shows how important it is that you realize that there is nobody literally nobody in the world who is just as unique as you are. So don't assume like something which is applied to another person that if it doesn't work with you that you're a failure.

No you're not. You're unique. Everyday beauty.

We conclude each session with some examples of everyday beauty because beauty and especially moral beauty, kindness, courage, compassion has a very positive influence on your inner state. Yesterday I saw a video of this Spanish football player. His name is Nico Williams from the Spanish team.

He's the guy who gave the assist to the guy who scored and the video was that he was walking in the stadium when the game was finished and he was looking for his mother and he found her standing somewhere and he walked up to his mother and he gave his gold medal to his mother. He said she deserves it more than I had because his mother had walked from Ghana to Spain well partly of course by the boat but she has walked through the Sahara in order to hopefully find a better life for herself and her family. That's incredible right? She walked through the Sahara to make a better life and that's how Nico and his brother were born in Spain and not in Ghana and they became good football players and now he's become a world champion.

But I think it's really really an example of moral beauty because he says my mother deserves the medal much much more than I do. So please remember we need your uniqueness. Be a better maker for yourself, for others, for the world.