How to be happy living overseas
Even though I write about living overseas here, the driving force behind the site is to live a happier life.
It’s not that you can only be happy overseas, or that you need to wait until you move before you start working on happiness. But, for me, moving overseas was one step towards the bigger goal of being happy.
Lately I’ve been reading and doing some experiments on how to spend more time being happy, instead of stressed out or frustrated. That led me to a book I bought years ago, and am finally getting around to reading. The book is “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi“. *
It’s not an easy book to read, but it has some interesting information in it.
Much of happiness comes from the control you have over your life
One of the first things mentioned is that much of unhappiness is because most people have very little control over their lives.
Think about a typical day. We wake up when an alarm clock tells us to. We get dressed in an outfit that fits into our company’s dress code. If we drive to work, we follow the orders of traffic lights and street signs. We get to work at the time our boss tells us to be there. For many people, their jobs involve following specific instructions given to them by their bosses – even if they can think of a better way to do their work. We’re afraid to jaywalk, even if there is no traffic. We wait for the light to turn green, even when we’re in the middle of nowhere and can see there are no other cars for miles.
And that doesn’t even include the hundreds or thousands of subtle things we are told everyday by advertisers. They make their money by stirring up our fears. No one will think we’re successful, unless we drive the high-priced car they sell. We’ll never find true love, without buying their clothes, makeup, or mouthwash. They try to make us feel like all these external things are what can give us happiness.
If you feel like you’re not in control of your life, that will lead to unhappiness – at least, according to what Mihaly writes in “Flow”.
My experiment in becoming happier
So, I started an experiment to see if it will lead to more happiness.
At the beginning of the month, I chose two positive things I could do in my life. In my case, it was exercise and meditate.
Now, I’m not in bad shape or extremely stressed, but both of these things seem like they’ll make an improvement in my life. For the experiment, I’ll do ten push-ups per day and meditate for ten minutes.
If you’re thinking, “That doesn’t seem hard” or “Why not add one more push-up each day?” remember, the goal here really isn’t to become stronger or have less stress. The goal of this experiment is to exercise more control over my life. So I picked something fairly easy, and the real “exercise” is to see if I can do it every day for a month. I wanted something big enough that it took some effort, but simple enough to have a good chance of succeeding.
Then I added those two things to my calendar. Every day, after I do them, I can check them off. This experiment is for a month, since several people have said it takes that long to really make a habit stick.
What you can do to regain control of your life and be happier
If this makes sense to you, I invite you to try the same thing in your life.
For the action you do every day, I suggest picking something positive that you add to your life. I don’t have any particular reason for doing it that way, but it seems better than eliminating something bad. So, I’d go with “walk around the block once”, instead of “don’t eat dessert”. It seems like adding something good lets you focus on expanding your world. While eliminating something bad has you thinking about a smaller, more confined world.
Save the elimination of bad habits for a time when you’ve already built up your “self-control” muscles with some positive exercises.
Whatever you choose, make it something that requires action from you each day. For example, if you decide that you want to add one dollar a day to your savings, you could probably set up an automatic transfer from your checking to your savings account, and then say you’re done. If that were my “happiness exercise”, I’d do it with an envelope at my desk. Every day, I’d put another dollar bill into the envelope.
So pick something that lets you see that you can add more control to your life. Then add it to your calendar, and check it off every day you do your exercise.
Just like a diet, if you miss a day, don’t use that as an excuse to stop. You can always repeat the experiment the next month, and see if you can make every day then. And if you do succeed, pick a new thing for the next month. The more you know in your heart that you can control your life, the happier you should be.
* Amazon affiliate link (if you buy a copy of this book, I earn a few percent commission)
{ 0 comments… add one now }