The Secret to being Happy

Today is Friday -- a day most of us look forward to (as in TGIF!). Its one of those boundary days (like a goal line or post) that we think of in terms of objectives or markers as in its the end of the work-week, or beginning of the weekend. The whole notion of time is arbitrary when you stop (if you have the courage to) and think about it. In our world, we measure the passage of time by the coincidental turning of the planet, the path it takes around the sun, and a calendar that is shoe-horned to match that physical 365ish day trip we make (I say 'shoe-horned' because we have to resort to making up for this imprecise measurement by adding in padding in the form of leap days and leap seconds).

There are lots of great analogies for Time -- Alan Parsons said it best when describing it like a river, which I think works for "time in the large", for all of us who have been here, are here, and will come after us.

There's a better, more personal visual that I think is really effective. The idea comes from a guy named Rudy who was one of those lifetimer employees from a different era. Rudy worked in a machine shop at a company that my girlfriend in college worked at. Rudy liked to explain time like this: He would pull a tape measure off his belt, and spool out about 90+ inches worth of tape and lay it out in front of you and say something like "This is all the time you've got here" and then ask you to point to where you were on the line.

With only so much time, why do so many people spend it being unhappy?

In the early 90's when I lived and worked in Japan, I had a lot of free time to hang out in the Zen Bhuddhist temples and Shinto Shrines near my office, usually during lunch and meditate on big ideas. "Unhappiness" it seemed to me, was a problem to be solved -- and being one of those Systems Thinking kind of philosopher/engineers it seemed like a good inquiry. It was during one of those long contemplative sessions as I watched people tying prayers/wishes to the boughs of Japanese apricot trees throughout the shrine at Yushima Tenjin that it kind of dawned me on a possible "root cause" if you will of unhappiness.

The secret to being happy (generally) is simply this: manage expections.

Lets put aside all the random and cruel events that happen that can cause us to fall into moments of despair and depression. I'm talking about an overall perspective and approach to dealing with relationships that ultimately defines your outlook on life. This is the essence of optimism!

So what do I mean when I say manage expectations? Who's expectations can be managed? In a word, you can really only control your own expectations, but you can absolutely seek to influence and shape the expectations others have of us. Like Rudy's tape measure, a few examples might help frame it.

Everyone has wants and desires. I would like to win the lottery and setup a bunch of non-profits. Do I expect to? No. Do I hope to? I figure for the $1 I spend I get about half an hour of fun speculation (cheap entertainment!) -- certainly more value than I get out of the $4 lattes I have everyday. How about being a candidate for a new job? Are you the perfect, ideal candidate that can bring so much to the organization that they just have to pick you? In your mind probably -- but if they don't? How do you respond?

Its a balancing act I admit. You don't want to become jaded and pessimistic and it comes down to approach.

So I like to think of it this way:

...you should absolutely hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect to be somewhere in between!

So, lets think for a minute about the promises we make to others. Do you follow-through? When you say you're going to do something, do you do it? Do people know that about you? Or do you have a reputation for being a lot of talk, and little follow-through. Does it cause problems? Is there a lot of unhappiness on both sides? Are you really managing their expectations? Now flip it around and think about the people in your life that are and are not managing your expectations...

I'm filing this one under "productivity" because I think having to do damage control on mismanaged expectations is a huge time sink. And as Rudy pointed out, we've only got so much time.

So today's Big Idea is this: Are you managing your (and to the extent possible, other's) expectations?