Happiness

Aug. 9, 2007

Mr. Toastmaster, fellow Toastmasters, and most welcomed gueste(s):

What is happiness? Will you be happy if you are young, good looking, and wealthy? On top of that, your wealth came not from inheritance but from your own talent and hard work. Won’t you be happy?

Why do so many young movie stars and rock stars have to undergo drug rehabilitation? Why aren’t they happy? What makes people happy?

I have lived for more than half a century. I don’t need to do any research to know that it takes
different things to make different kinds of people happy. In my opinion there are 3 kinds of
people: the Zen monks, the super achievers, and the reasonable people.

The Zen monks are those who think the four stages of life are being born, getting old, getting
sick, and dieing. To them, the way to happiness is to strive for emptiness, for nothingness, and
to have no desire. The idea is that if you don’t have any desire, you will never be disappointed
and therefore never be unhappy. Their logic is flawed, for being not unhappy does not equate to
being happy. I think happiness and sadness, fulfillment and disappointment come hand in hand just as sweetness and bitterness come hand in hand. Should you never taste bitterness, you would not know what sweetness tastes like. If you have never experienced disappointment or sadness you won’t know you are happy even if it falls in your lap.

When the Pulitzer Prize winner Irving Stone wrote about Michelangelo, he entitled it “The Agony and The Ecstasy”. Just by looking at the title, I known he understood that without the agony there will be no ecstasy.

The super achievers believe “The sense of joy comes from adrenaline and the vigor of purpose.”
The more vigorous the purpose, the harder the adrenaline pumps. This, I can appreciate. I would add: the higher the risk, the more satisfying when the goal is achieved—winning against my wife in a round of golf is fun, beating the club champion is joy, beating Tiger Woods is ecstasy of the highest order.

George Bernard Shaw said “Reasonable people adapt to the world. Unreasonable people want the world to adapt to them. Therefore, all great things are achieved by unreasonable people.” By definition, the super achievers are what Mr. Shaw referred to as the “unreasonable people”. The super achievers are bound to be unhappy most of the time, unless they learn to lighten up a little.

The reasonable people believe being happy is as natural as breath in and breath out. They cannot understand all the hoopla about defining what happiness is. They are people like the cute little girls in “The Sound of Music”. The girls said, or even better, sang:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,
Brown paper packages tied up with strings,
These are a few of my favorite things.
(so that) When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel so bad.

A reasonable man that I am, I have a few favorite things of my own:

A round of golf with my wife and friends,
A few birdies here and there,
Children come home to lunch once in a while,
In a hot tub with a good book and a cup of tea in my hand,
These are a few of my favorite things.
So that when the work bites, when Wall Street stings, when the sky falls,
I simply enjoy my favorite little things and I am a happy man.

Chinese folks like to say, “Eight or nine out of ten events in life are disappointing and
unsatisfying.” In response, my wife created a photo-story from our family pictures and gave it
the title “Remembering the one or two things in Life.” I am a reasonable man; I listen to my wife: remember the one or two things, instead of to the monks; that’s why our family is a happy one.

It’s perfectly fine and proper and even admirable to set ambitious goals and do your best to
achieve them, as long as you do not insist on beating yourself up when you fail. Some people may need to define happiness before they can design a plan to attain happiness. A reasonably person does not have this hang-up. A reasonable person needs only to listen to my wife
and to remember cute little girls singing. With more than half a century’s hands-on experience, I give you this advice: be reasonable.

Mr. Toastmaster.