Looking for Happiness in "All the Wrong Places"

I was 41 years old, stretched out on a lounge chair by my pool and reflecting on my life. I had achieved all that I thought I needed to be happy.

You see when I was a child, I imagined there were five main things that ensured a happy life: a successful career that helped people, a loving husband, a comfortable home, a great body, and a wonderful circle of friends. After years of study, hard work, and a few "lucky breaks," I finally had them all. (Okay, so my body didn't quite look like Halle Berry's—four out of five isn't bad!) You think I'd have been on the top of the world.

But surprisingly I wasn't. I felt an emptiness inside that the outer successes of life couldn't fill. I was also afraid that if I lost any of those things, I might be miserable. Sadly, I knew I wasn't alone in feeling this way.

While happiness is the one thing that we all truly want, so few people really experience the deep and lasting fulfillment that feeds our soul. Our Founding Fathers even guaranteed us the right to pursue happiness, so why aren't we finding it?

Because we're looking for happiness, in the words of the old country western song, in "all the wrong places."

That week I threw myself into the study of happiness. The culmination for me was when I discovered a state I call happy for no reason, a neurophysiological state of inner peace and well-being that isn't dependent on circumstances. I believe this is our essential state.

When you're happy for no reason, you bring happiness to your everyday experiences rather than extract happiness from them. You don't need to manipulate the world around you to try to make yourself happy. You live from happiness, rather than for it.

Most of us struggle to string together as many happy experiences as we can, like beads in a necklace, to create a happy life. We do our best to find just the right beads that will fulfill us. Being happy for no reason, in this analogy, is like having a happy string. No matter what beads we put on our necklace—good and not so good—our inner reality, the string that runs through them all, is happy, and we experience an unshakeable positive state inside.

So, how do we get there?

I found the answer in the lives of the 100 deeply happy people I interviewed as research for my book. The only difference between happy and unhappy people is that they have different habits. In fact, I identified 21 core happiness habits that anyone can practice to be happier.

One of the most prevalent habits that happy people share is believing that the universe is out to support them—that this is a friendly universe. When things don't seem to be going their way, instead of feeling like victims, they look for the lesson and the gift in the situation. In other words, they believe there is a higher purpose that is supporting their ultimate good.

Practicing this one habit has made a huge difference in my own life. Try it yourself: The next time you face a challenge, take a moment to reflect silently, asking yourself, "If this were happening for a higher purpose, what would it be?" I'm certain that whatever answer you discover will be illuminating, but more importantly you'll begin tapping into that state of inner peace and well-being on a regular basis.

Remember, when you're happy for no reason, it's not that your life always looks perfect—it's that however it looks, you'll still be happy!

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