Happiness Made Simple

How is it that someone can lose a limb and live a more fulfilled life than they had prior, while at the same time we hear about people committing suicide a few years after winning the lottery?

Trying to be happy is a lot like trying to be a colour. When did a colour become itself? How did it go about it? Is there a step-by-step process? Can a colour read a self-help book on itself to become a better colour?

Confused? Don’t sweat it – we’re partially being cheeky – just hear us out.

Thanks to our friends at Crayola, we can define colour as:

“…the aspect of things that is caused by differing qualities of light being reflected or emitted by them. To see colour, you have to have light. When light shines on an object some colours bounce off the object and others are absorbed by it. Our eyes only see the colours that are bounced off or reflected.“

What we’re trying to get at is a colour doesn’t “achieve” itself. Red doesn’t learn how to be red. It IS red. It’s also every other colour you can think of – it just depends how an object chooses to reflect or absorb light.

We’re already happy – we ARE what we want. Just as light has the complete potential to be every colour – we ourselves have the complete potential to be every thought, feeling and emotion we can experience.

Now in order to act, feel and become who we choose, we need to place focus on absorbing and reflecting the proper thoughts and emotions, which if we’re being honest – can sometimes feel like being bombarded with an endless, irrational hurricane of behaviour and choices. Thanks Universe…

The whole concept of happiness can be an ambiguous thing to describe. It’s often illustrated in a way that sounds like you can just pick it off the shelf at your local store but each time finding it’s out of stock.

Happiness is not something you find, purchase or think about – it’s something you are. It’s something you cultivate through habits, connection, progress and experience. Garnering the right perceptions, absorbing and reflecting the proper thoughts and always being aware of the choices you make, good or bad.

It’s also crazy that a lot of the time we don’t even know how happy we were until something bad happens! We think to ourselves, “I was happy and I didn’t even know!?” Happiness is not some majestic Unicorn that will make you go blind from complete and utter bliss – it’s simply a state of living full, aware and with intent.

It’s like asking someone if you’re cool or not. Chances are if you have to ask – you already have a wedgie.

Life is a colouring book, we are the crayons and we have an unlimited amount of colours to choose from. Get to work, doodle some cool shit and stop looking at what others are drawing. This isn’t a frigin’ contest.

Do you think it’s possible to become good at something without knowing what it’s like to suck at it first?

Learn to love failure. Learn to love not getting what you want. Learn to love the idea that things you want don’t come easy. Appreciate the process of achieving your goals and you will never live a boring moment. The paradox of getting what you want is that if you didn’t bleed for it, chances are you won’t appreciate it.

Failure gets a bad reputation when we stop viewing it as a learning tool and begin getting frustrated with thinking it’s a punishment. Life isn’t punishing you with failure – it’s teaching you, guiding you and letting you explore the world around you with it’s unlimited possibilities and experiences. It’s absolutely essential.

Failure is awesome. How else are we supposed to become the next great inventor, chef or racecar driver? How else are we supposed to find someone we love more than Internet cat memes? Evolve past your desire to only succeed and welcome the idea that failure doesn’t feel good – but it’s oh so necessary to feel great.

It’s the most effective learning tool we have and if you know how to use it – you’ll be way ahead in this crazy game. When people wish they had an easier life (or perfect life), what they’re really saying is, “I wish I didn’t have to fail in order to experience cool shit.” Too bad dude, life is going to be really, really rough.

Live brave, courageous and ferocious! We learn very little from our successes, albeit a nice little treat, as they are generally just a by-product of failing enough times. But enjoy the process, have some appreciation for when you succeed and learn as much as you can when you don’t – and you’ll be wondering why you feel so awesome, more often. Almost like you’re kicking ass AND still have some bubble gum left in your pocket.

We’re not talking about fears like sharks, spiders and ghosts. We’re talking about fears that stop you from experiencing things you’d really like to do and generally aren’t emotionally or physically harmful. The fear of speaking in public, talking to the new girl in class or failing at something new. Many of our biggest fears are deep-seated, subconscious beliefs and behaviours – accompanied by a simple lack of experience.

Learning to describe your fears and building small action items around them can do wonders in realizing you actually have more control over your fears than you think. By taking baby steps and slowly progressing, we learn not many things in life really deserve the emotional distress we place on them. Reserve that for robot sharks and a future zombie apocalypse.

Does this make your fears any less terrifying? Of course not, but now your logical side can sneak in and start to interact with the emotional ring-leaders that have been leading the way thus far.

Every time you consciously decide to do something outside your comfort zone, you’ll have a small sense of anxious excitement throughout the entire process and this will strangely allow you to feel more alive and subconsciously exhilarated! Who cares when it happens. You’re living life!

Everyone is afraid of something. It’s the people who understand, accept and move through their fears who have their fingers on the pulse. The bravest men and women of our time acted not because they were fearless, as they were most likely super terrified, but because they were able to act in spite of their fears. It could have been out of ambition or necessity – but there was fear nonetheless.

Ever thought about if you truly wanted something or if you just desired the chance to experience it?

There are a lot of people who say they want to “own a Ferrari”. Now how many actually just want to experience the ferocious, asphalt bending sensation of driving one – and not having to deal with all the maintenance? Take your own personal example and think about how much more attainable that goal is.

Maybe you’ll find that some of your goals hold unnecessary or materialistic value that doesn’t give you much of an experience and is more about trying to “keep up with the Joneses” or impressing people at a party. You might find that after some thought, you discover something that holds a stronger place in your heart. Think about traveling the world, starting a small charity or secretly just test driving your dream car.

For some perspective, let’s think about some of the life-changing discoveries of our time. Gasoline engines, microwaves, wireless communication, digital photography, the Internet, cat memes. The list goes on. Can you name any of the people that founded these inventions? We only know a couple and we wrote this!

Sure we can appreciate these things without knowing who created them but if you don’t know the people who invented life changing technology – who is going to remember you in 100 years? And this isn’t at all a bad thing. Imagine if you won Employee of The Year for 25 years straight or were able to save your business a bazillion dollars with a new idea – will people really be thinking about you in centuries to come?

*99 years from now, in a flying car* “Hey, do you remember Susan? Man she could sure file a tax-return like a champ! I’m going to spend all day tomorrow writing about her in my cloud based, brain journal.”

You are free. Free of expectation, failure, respect, acknowledgment, priority or any other judgement you – or society – place on your mind. Venture out to live life the way you want to feel and not the way you think you should feel. Spend time with people you want to care about and not those you think you should care about.

Someone says you work too much? Tell them, “Screw off.” Just keep in mind, you better know exactly why you’re putting in so many hours instead of with your family – ’cause time is all we have. Becoming aware and taking responsibility for your actions means you’re also taking responsibility for the consequences.

The world is out there. Stop focusing on what other people are doing, thinking or caring about and grab that baby before it’s long gone and covered with dust. We promise the only thing you’ll truly regret in life, from the bottom of your soul, is not doing some more crazy shit, going on new adventures and stopping to look up at the sky once in a while – smiling with the sun blasting down on your face – for no reason at all.

Listen, we quite literally help people relax by getting them naked. We know this can have the potential to be a little strange for some and amusing for others, but we just acknowledge this from the get go.

That being said, we’ve personally seen float tanks help reduce insane levels of stress, gain some incredible insight on personal situations and have even had people change careers after realizing it wasn’t what they really wanted to do. So why can floating have such a profound impact on peoples’ lives?

Here’s the secret – it has nothing to do with floating in a giant bath of Epsom salt and everything to do with separating yourself from everyday distractions, stimulus and stress. Spending time with your thoughts, or lack thereof, and just coasting through a couple hours of complete silence. Medicine for the soul.

You’ve all heard or read about the benefits of meditation, even for a few minutes a day. It’s a great way to separate your mind and body, almost like placing them quietly on charging stations, which can help with when we’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious, stressed or just looking for some refreshing clarity.

When we learn to cut out some of our determined mental chatter, we can dip into this meditative state and start to grasp the concept of “nothingness” throughout the day – to be calm, relaxed. An opportunity for peace in the middle of a hectic week or before a really important presentation or competition.

We occasionally give the example that if someone were to cut you off in morning traffic, you’re more likely to shrug it off than let it ruin your day. Finding that peace in letting external circumstances go. This can be practiced through traditional mediation or even just sitting quietly in your living room or office.

We don’t often record the amount of time that we feel in a bad mood – but imagine if you had a few more great days in a month when you were feeling like a champ. What would you do with them?

Let’s get real, real. The Universe doesn’t understand broke, sad, lonely, unappreciated or angry.

It doesn’t recognize your Degree or Masters, your medals or trophies and it sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about how much your boss hates you, how long your car takes to heat up in the morning when it’s cold out or that your kid is a lazy smart-ass that should be studying harder in school.

It just knows that you’re alive, and if you’re alive, you’ve joined in on the experience. Congratulations, it’s your turn to participate in the ultimate game of strange environments and weird sensations.

There are so many amazingly awesome aspects to life like; learning new things, loving the hell out of somebody or exploring with the vast world around you. So just be cognizant to remind yourself of this once in a while so you don’t let these things pass you by – because that would be a real tragedy.

So what if you work 40+ hours a week at a job and there happens to be a few people that could be classified as mildly annoying – do you like what you do? Beautiful! The more power to you.

What about all the hours you’ve logged on Netflix this week – seen anything memorable that made you laugh out loud, cry or a elicit a strange combination of both? That’s awesome! Invite us over next time?

We don’t want to come off as people who don’t veg out, kick our feet up and let off some steam – we all have responsibilities, we’re all a part of society and most importantly, we’re all wonderfully imperfect.

We just want to be painfully clear on how easy it can be to get too caught up in who we’re trying to be and end up losing track of who we are. No one wants to wake up one day screaming, “Ugh, WTF happened!?”

As human beings, we’re all self-aware. And with this have the phenomenal ability to plan ahead, learn from past mistakes and use our imaginations to create unbelievable stuff. That being said, it’s equally important to recognize that we also have the capacity to lie back, take a breath and simply appreciate what’s right in front of us, independent of what has happened or will happen in our lives – and on this crazy, crazy planet.