The antidote to happiness procrastination...

Live like your chapter is ending.

Let me introduce you to what I call happiness procrastination…

A friend of mine told me he’s been not so happy with life lately and he’s looking for a new place to live. Now he’s got a great spot living with great friends and a solid job with work-life balance. He’s good looking and in good health.

But I noticed something odd…

About 9 months ago he hated his finance job and felt once he got a new job with more work from home and less demands he’d be happier.

About 9 months before that he was living alone in an apartment that he didn’t like figuring out how to get a good job and he felt like once he moved in with friends and got a finance job he’d be set.

About 12 months before that he was stationed overseas with the military, and I remember how he would go on and on about how he just couldn’t wait to get out. Once he got out and got home, he would have it all. He looked forward to it for years.

And about 5 years before that, as he was wrapping up college, he thought the military would be a great experience and give him a chance to reinvent himself with the discipline and structure he needed to really flourish.

Do you notice anything?

I don’t want to throw stones. I’ve been through it plenty of times. “Oh, if I just get through this busy week then I can tone it down. Oh, if I just get through this month then I’ll have a lot better balance. Oh, I’m overdoing it now but once I quit my job next year then I’ll be good…”

This may be the grand happiness trap.

And it’s for good reason that humans tend to think this way. It’s a tremendous way to be wired when it comes to staying alive. If evolution programs you to always take care of your future self — keep striving to look ahead to future relaxation, happiness, and better days just out of reach — then you’re probably much more likely to survive.

Compare that to the hunter-gatherer who looked around at their cave full of nuts and meat and said, “damn I’ve made it — time to chill.”

I’m not ignorant to the fact that sometimes we ought to sacrifice in the name of future happiness. And there are plenty of times when getting to that place on the horizon will make us happier.

But I’m willing to say that most of the time we’re not living life, we’re living mind. We’re living the mental ideal of some better future. We’re so fixated on improving our lives that we forget to live them – and enjoy living them at that!

It reminds me of a Zen story of a student and his teacher. 

One day they’re on a walk and the student says – “wouldn’t it be nice to have a picnic.”

And the teacher says – “sure, we really should.”

But it’s a busy time of year so months go by and the student reminds his teacher of the picnic. “Oh yeah, we’ll go for one soon.”

A couple years later they’re driving in from the nearby town and get stopped in traffic waiting on a long funeral procession.

The teacher looks out at the cars in front of them and says - “what’s going on?”

And the student says – “they’re having a picnic!”

What’s your picnic?

When I lived at the Zen monastery there was a big wooden slab that someone struck with a wooden mallet to signal the beginning of a meditation period. On the wooden slab was written –

Life is fleeting, gone, gone, do not waste this life!

I’ve found an antidote to happiness procrastination that’s been the common thread through most of my happiest seasons of life.

I rediscovered this a few days ago during my first bout of neurodynamic breathwork. My mind drifted back through seasons of my life.

And I saw the lightness and richness that came with my last few months of college. My last semester I committed to working half time so I could focus on my last hurrah of not being an adult.

I saw the playful aimlessness of wrapping up high school when my primary use of time was figuring out how to best waste it.

I saw many summers turning to fall — the strangely beautiful and beautifully strange feeling of going-on-ness that comes with turning leaves.

Many of the best seasons of my life have been the end of chapters. The last few months of college, the last weeks of summer, the last few days of vacation…

It seems when I feel something winding up, it reminds me of the fleetingness of it all. And it reminds me to be here for it.

Perhaps if you look back on your happiest seasons, you’ll find a similar pattern...

As I closed out my breathwork session I felt myself spontaneously repeating to myself over and over again – you can live like this if you just have faith.

You can live like this if you just have faith.

So that’s become a riddle of sorts and a point of calibration when I think of how I’m living. And while far from perfect, it helps me avoid the happiness trap of getting their later.

Your life is not preparation for your life, it’s your life.

The moment you stop going, you arrive as one eastern saying puts it.

So, what would it mean to live as though this were the ending of a chapter: the ending of the summer or fall or winter or spring, the ending of your youth, the ending of your 30s or 40s or 50s, or the ending of your life? The truth is we are always winding down one chapter or another. What if you were to make fully experiencing your life your priority? What’s your picnic?

You can live like this if you just have faith.

Life is fleeting, gone, gone, do not waste this life!

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson K.