Book: Happiness Now
Title: Happiness Now; Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good Fast
Author: Robert Holden
NLS DB # 67679
Copyright 1998, 2007
Reading Time: 8:40
The title says it all, and so much more. Received this from the library the other day and was intrigued. Certainly, though I’m happier than I’ve ever been (if you don’t count my earliest childhood days), I could still be happier. Perhaps this work will offer a few useful gems of information to that end. Let’s see.
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April 18th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
11:30 PM: Read chapter one; the central emphasis being to focus on the here and now when searching for happiness, as all you need to achieve true joy is in the here and now. It’s neither in the past, nor in the future, but it’s all right here, in the now. The sacred now. This chapter impressed me as a bit “feel-goody”. But he went on to explain these sentiments more deeply and how modern psychology is beginning to think in these terms to solve people’s sadness issues.
April 19th, 2010 at 4:27 am
07:15 AM: Read chapter two, about ending the search for happiness, overnight.
This talked about our fear of experiencing happiness. Specifically: The more we believe that a particular thing will make us happy, the more afraid of getting close to it we become. Often, once we acquire the object of desire, we find that it’s not so desirable anymore. This has certainly been the case in my life; especially with women. That is: The more attracted to someone I am, the harder it is to approach them. Then, if I do work up the courage to ask them out, I’ve found them to be wanting, and then I become highly disappointed. Indeed, I’ve often blamed the situation – she turned out to be just not pretty enough, or I learned unattractive things about her as I got to know her that destroyed her allure in my eyes. But maybe (and I’m not saying that I believe this for sure yet, but merely acknowledging that it’s possible) there’s no woman who will ever be sexy enough to make me happy. Maybe.
This author cited the New Testament and how it encourages us to be happy in the here and now (while we’re living, and before we reach the hereafter). We are in fact, worthy of being happy. But coming to believe that implicitly can be most difficult. Getting truly happy demands that we first make peace with ourselves.
Ironically, we can’t be happy while we’re chasing happiness, because the chase itself means that we’ve not accepted the idea that we can find happiness, entirely within ourselves, without needing to look to objects in the outside world to supply happiness to us. In short: We’ve not entirely accepted ourselves.
Dis-illusion. When we pursue happiness, we’re in all likelihood, grasping at an illusion. Pursuing happiness is, according to this author, the greatest mistake we can make, because doing so destroys our ability to actually be happy. Chasing happiness means that we’ve not accepted ourselves for who we are.
Finally, Holden discussed how depressed people, when asked what’s the matter, so often say, “Oh, I don’t know. Nothing makes me happy.” He pointed out that this statement is actually profoundly true; for all of us, whether we’re happy or not.
Outside stimuli may encourage us to be happy; but nothing actually makes us that way. Our emotional states are determined entirely from within ourselves.
Insightful chapter.
April 19th, 2010 at 8:41 am
Yes, I too am reading the Happiness Now book. It’s taken me a while to read this book. I’m on chapter seven where Holden is talking about love, and how we should love ourselves before we can think about loving someone else. One of the reasons why it’s taken me a while to finish reading this book is because for one thing there’s a lot of information to digest. Another is I tend to fall asleep while reading it. Other than those two issues, I do think that it’s a book worth reading. I know that this book could definitely help me out in my life, since I have always strived to be a more happy person. I think anyone could strive to be more happy in their personal lives.
April 19th, 2010 at 8:53 am
It really is quite the information-packed book. I’ve actually started chapter one over a couple times, because I felt that I missed a lot of it the first time through. But so far, I am enjoying this book.
Holden mentions another book, called A Course In Miracles, which I may read someday. Many self help works reference this one. So apparently, it well worth reading. But it’s over a thousand pages long (so I’ve heard), and may have a big religious slant. So I may not get to it for some time. But I will one day. In the meantime, I’ll keep reading Happiness Now.
April 20th, 2010 at 6:16 am
Read chapter three, on being good enough.
Disease (or dis-ease) or sadness often comes from excessive self judgments.
Joy has no fear.
CSJ – Constant Self Judgment
The ego is just a human invention; nothing physically existential about it.
Ego addiction.
Can’t enjoy being loved without self acceptance.
Unless happy with self, you won’t be truly happy in any situation.
Achieve for joy; not for need. You don’t NEED to achieve.
When you’ll judge yourself, you’ll probably judge others.
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:20 am
[...] Now that I’ve finished reading The Grapes of Wrath, I’m returning to the Happiness Now [...]
May 4th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
11:40 PM: Attempted to read Chapter Four, but fell asleep. I liked this chapter; it wasn’t boring. But I was just too tired to stay awake. So I’ll re read it shortly.
May 10th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
The past few nights, I’ve fallen asleep while attempting to read chapter four. It’s really a very interesting and encouraging book; I just need to read it, in the morning perhaps, when I’m not so tired. Or, I’ll sit in my chair while listening, and take notes.
May 10th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
[...] 10:37 PM: Reading this book now called Happiness Now; Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good Fast, by Robert Holden. Those with a religious bent might find this a bit humanistic. But I, with my agnostic persuasion, think it refreshing and encouraging. Though I’ve fallen asleep several times in chapter four, this is NOT due to any lousy prose. I just never find the time to read until I’m worn out at day’s end. It’s actually quite informative and fresh, and reminds me Buddhist philosophy. Check it out if you feel that you’re not as happy in your life as you ought to be. More details here. [...]
May 11th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Chapter Four – embracing and rehearsing self acceptance.
• Acceptance games that teach how to find self acceptance, where participants are asked to set aside one day for self-appreciation. None did that after a month, so try an hour. After a week, none managed that. In fact, most gamers could not even allocate one minute in which they totally accepted themselves.
• But time shortages need not preclude being happy, for happiness is timeless; though most gave the too-busy-to-find-time-to-be-happy excuse.
• Lack of time distracts us from engaging fully in self-acceptance in the sense that we think we need time (though we don’t) for this, and then cannot find any. When we cannot find enough time, we blame our lacking self acceptance on our busy lifestyles.
• The more we accept ourselves as we are, the happier we become.
• We withhold self acceptance, believing that we’re not worthy of it.
• So our estimate of our self worth controls how happy we can be.
• But then there’s guilt over being happy. We feel guilty for being happy; we do not deserve it.
• Guilt however, is a learned belief that can be unlearned.
• The more we desire happiness, the guiltier we feel should we achieve it.
• Irrational Belief (IB): The greater the pleasure, the more sinful it is.
• Happiness Guilt: the belief that we’re undeserving or unworthy of happiness.
• IB: We don’t deserve to be happy. We neither deserve it nor can we ever deserve it. Happiness is a birthright.
• Happiness guilt appears to be taught in all the major religions. We’re not supposed to be happy unless we’re behaving as these institutions would have us behave.
• But to be free of guilt ourselves, we should not teach others to feel guilty over their happiness.
• Guilt cancels out happiness.
• To be happy, accept yourself as a whole person; “flaws” and all.
• Being happy is natural; it’s neither earned, gifted, nor need it depend heavily on what others think of us.
• One picks happiness; he does not earn it.
• The work ethic discourages happiness; it’s message: you have to work hard to be happy. Then, when you achieve the next level at work and enjoy that for a little while, then you must work some more. IB: Work must be done to be happy.
• Stop -trying- to be happy. We need achieve nothing to be happy. We can choose to be happy at any time. Happiness costs nothing.
• IB: No pain, no gain.
• Suffering Ethic: Belief that one must suffer a lot before he’s worthy of being happy. IB.
• I bought into both the work and suffering ethics in my previous careers.
• Martyr ethic: Belief that happiness is selfish; that we should sacrifice our own happiness so that others’ happiness is strengthened. But we need sacrifice nothing to be happy. Happiness is ours for the taking, just by fully accepting ourselves.
May 13th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Read chapter five. Notes follow:
• Condition-less living is what you need to do to be a hundred percent happy.
• Quit the guilt-based self-improvement if you wish to fully accept yourself. You’re good enough to be worthy of happiness without self-improvement.
• Improve because you enjoy the process of it; not because you think that you’re not good enough as you are,
• Happiness is free. It comes without guilt, and it costs nothing.
• Self-help won’t help without self acceptance.
• Release ego and accept self.
• What, really, must you achieve in order to be happy? Chasing goals usually leads to the same discontent after you reach it as you had when you began the pursuit.
• We can be happy, just being, and doing nothing. Like the song says: I love to work at nothing all day.
• Happiness is in fact, condition-less; all except for one pre condition, and that is self acceptance.
• Albert Ellis’s musterbation concept. Musterbation occurs when you’re telling yourself often that you MUST do this or MUST do that, in order to accomplish true happiness. Musterbation places needless conditions on happiness. So be careful not to do it too much for desires that really are not essential to fill.
• Must, should, ought, need; all are words that the musterbater uses too much.
• Ego is a harsh judge that can never be satiated. When you plan to be happy once this or that happens, then assuming you reach that point where all goals in the plan were met successfully, you typically don’t stay happy for long before you discover another goal or condition. Then, happiness gets deferred once more until you meet that goal, and so on, and so on.
• Holden likens the ego to the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland; always in a hurry to get somewhere different than where he is now.
• MORE, THERE, NEXT – preconditions for ego-based happiness. You must have MORE, you must get THERE, and you must see what’s NEXT in order to be happy.
• We’re sad when we should be happy, because we devalue what we already have, and seek to get more, move to the next level, and won’t be happy until we get there.
• Our society is wealthier than ever. Yet we’re also more sad, violent, and depressed than ever. Apparently, the material gains of the 1980s and 1990s haven’t made us any happier as a group.
• Having more can encourage happiness. But it won’t make you happy if you’re not already basically happy to begin with. More stuff does not necessarily create happiness.
• Pleasure is not the same as happiness.
• What about more lovers? It seems to me that the basic desires (referring to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs triangle now), are exempt from Holden’s claims about happiness being strictly derived from our internal thoughts of self-acceptance. If you lack food, you won’t be happy for long no matter how completely you accept yourself. If you’re missing a sense of safety and security, you’ll worry about keeping yourself protected, and not get to enjoy being happy. Also, if you’re missing love, I do not accept the idea that you can be happy in spite of this, just by accepting yourself.
• Happiness is immediate. No NEXT. Happiness is in the now, according to Holden. It’s present tense; not futuristic. You need actually wait for nothing to happen before being happy because happiness is there immediately for the taking.
• So no stage of life makes us happier.
• Happiness can be enjoyed during the journey; it’s not the destination really.
• Where one lives or works (location) may promote happiness but does not create or secure it typically.
• My thought: We may be able to eliminate the guilt-motivated pursuit of Maslow’s level four and five needs, and attain happiness; but we will not be as happy as we could be unless the needs at levels one, two, and three are satisfied most of the time.
• An exact set of external stimuli and circumstances are not needed to produce pure happiness , and will likely not produce it if provided. You may get pleasure from these, but you probably will not get happiness.
• Happiness for no reason at all is the best kind of happiness. You need not struggle to understand it, much less get it. Happiness requires no reasons or justification.
• If you’re joyous and then attempt to figure out why, the happiness usually disappears.
• Being spontaneously available to be happy. You do this by fully accepting yourself as you are.
• Put aside thoughts of all pre conditions for happiness to bask in happiness.
• Happy minds make no plans for happiness per se because happiness needs no plan; it just exists, without planning for it.
• So we need not await happiness until other things fall into place. Happiness is here already.
• Indeed, we get ready to be happy so much that we never actually attain happiness, though it’s present in all of us, all the time (100%).
June 20th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
[...] PM: Continued reading the Happiness Now book. Finished chapter six this afternoon at the [...]
October 27th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Read Chapter Six. Notes follow:
• Moods change because life gets hard at times.
• Recommended book: Weight Loss for the Mind.
• Develop acceptance in the face of negativity.
• Specifically: Don’t stop loving, no matter the opposing forces.
• See unhappiness as temporary. E.g. Things pass.
• Avoid over-generalizing about how bad or permanent sadness will be.
• Unhappiness is fear, and fear brings with it unhappiness. So unhappiness is a sure sign of fear.
• FEAR – False Evidence Appearing Real.
• FEAR – Forgetting Everything is All Right.
• FEAR – F— Everything And Run.
• Irrational Belief: Unhappiness is permanent.
• Unhappiness makes us NOT unique.
• Allow yourself to fully experience fear; avoiding self-criticisms and judgments.
• Unhappiness is not me. I am with anger but am not angry.
• Healing unhappiness is getting back to our natural states which brim with joy and love.
• People imitate happiness to look happy, when in fact, they’re actually sad. It’s hard after all, to admit depression publicly.
• Almost all pain comes from attempting to conceal it.
• Unhappiness is not sinful, so punishment for it is not needed.
• Get happy via honesty.
• Truth destroys all shame.
• Acceptance beats unhappiness and a whole plethora of other negative emotions.
• Drugs often wrongly prescribed to block feelings.
• Ask for help. Healing alone is probably impossible. Shed yourself of guilt when asking. Retain your spirit to be happy.
• Don’t be too controlling about your healing. You’ll probably heal, but often not in the ways you expect at the start.
• Avoid overanalyzing your healing and how it takes place. Just be open to it.
• Face emotions honestly and openly.
• Healing does not need effort; just desire and openness.