http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/03/business_week_ranks_portland_a.html
The title, of this article from the Oregonian:
BusinessWeek ranks Portland at top of "unhappiest cities" list
The indicators, according to the Oregonian, are divorce, suicide, depression (gauged by sales of antidepressants), crime, unemployment and clouds.
When I read the headline, I wondered which Portland they're talking about. Portland, Maine? Ever since I got here, I myself have been very happy, very fulfilled, and quite satisfied. Moreover, most of the people I've come to know and love (and make no mistake; this is no small posse) are happy as well. It made me think that I am not getting around enough; why have I not really encountered this "Other Portland?"
Then I thought about it some more. I have seen that Other Portland: When I lived in the Alberta district, our neighborhood had its resident crack addicts, the drunk guy whom I've never passed on the street without being asked for a quarter, and some others.
The other night as I was walking to grab dinner at a neighborhood eatery, I saw the Other Portland: a man storming out the door, his female companion yelling at him, he shouting back, a child screaming. And I shared tea with someone who has been on antidepressants for years, who desperately wants to connect with something beyond himself but has been grasping for what that is.
At the market the other day, the current issue of Psychology Today caught my eye, with a giant happy face on the cover and the lead article, "Happiness, how to turn it on." Having already decided to blog on the subject, I picked up a copy to see what it had to say and if the magazine could somehow help Portland with its apparent happiness problem.
Psychology Today had some good things to say about it, but nothing that you couldn't get with more eloquence by reading Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. One of the central notions is that if you want to be happy, don't run from sadness. There are many variations on this theme played out in Psychology Today, which are solid ideas, but not attributable to the journalist who wrote the article.
Pretty much everyone wants to be happy to a point. Usually that point is the edge that scares them, that they fear too much to go beyond. That edge can be something as simple as speaking your truth to someone instead of pretending that it doesn't matter, or something as elaborate as selling your home, cashing out, and traveling the world. Really, though, it doesn't matter where your edge is as long as you don't run from it. Dance with it, never cross it if you don't want to, but make it your friend or it will seem to mock you from afar.
The Psychology Today author also writes about contentment (as does Robert A. Johnson, one of my favorite personal transformation authors, EVER) as a sort of superior version of happiness. Contentment is much more like the version of happiness that Buddha and Christ spoke about, where your possessions don't own you, and where you take what comes, appreciate it, and know that the difficult and the delightful are needed to appreciate and to recognize each other. Contentment witnesses ecstasy and pain, without taking either very personally or making too big a deal of them. Contentment is possible when you know in your heart -- or wherever you know things -- that you are enough, just fine the way you are.
Which Portland do you live in? A Portland of beauty, fun, and community? Or a Portland of gloom, anger, and boredom? Maybe you're just plain ambivalent. Maybe you have a foot in each Portland. Do you want happiness? Make some effort, and be willing to let go of some things.
What follows are my 10 Suggestions for Happiness, which have been known to lead to contentment. Really delving in to just a few of them will yield results. Don't leave out the ones that scare you. That's the edge we were talking about.
1) Adopt the idea that you are the only person responsible for your own happiness. The Oregonian article was, rather fittingly, followed by several reader comments, in which people on the political right and left were blaming each other for the city's woes.
Nelson Mandela, who was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for his anti-Apartheid activism, was consigned to hard labor for the duration of the 27 years he served before release. Despite the ill treatment a black political prisoner would have received in Apartheid South Africa, Mandela emerged from prison a leader -- not angry, not set upon revenge -- and ultimately, happy. Clearly, he was the only person in charge of his own happiness, and shortly after his release became the first leader of a post-Apartheid South Africa.
Being responsible for your happiness means being at the cause of your life, and not the effect. Happy people, as the famous Serenity Prayer suggests, either change the things they can or accept the things they can't change, and they have wisdom to know the difference. Changing your world becomes a game worthy of playing hard, and part of the fun is finding your team. If you don't succeed, either try a different tactic or a different direction, and don't take it personally. Play games worth losing. If you need to just accept things the way they are, know that you are enough and that "how you are" does not equal "how you feel."
2) Get related to your body. Start with moving it. Although exercise doesn't cause happiness, it's a major contributing factor. I heard of a study in which the anti-depressant Zoloft was tested against an exercise regime in a group of clinically depressed subjects. After a certain time, the results were the same, but going forward, exercise surpassed Zoloft's effectiveness. Your mood improves when the energy within your body is moving. Dance, jogging, yoga, tai chi, martial arts, gym workouts, hiking, biking, swimming, etc. are all good. I'm partial to ecstatic dance. Portlanders: check out www.pdxecstaticdance.com. Opportunities to learn ballroom dancing, salsa and tango abound here in Portland. Learning to use your body, take the next steps, which are enjoying and loving your body.
Next, enjoy your body. Experience pleasure. Don't be a slave to it, but definitely serve it. Don't skimp out. The whole point of having a body is to enjoy it, and use it for good. What is good is something that you get to determine. Want to stay unhappy? Then believe what other people say about what pleasures you should and shouldn't experience. (Note: your pleasure should never come at the expense of someone's well-being, including your own.) How can Portland be miserable with so much good chocolate? That is a mystery to me!
Then love your body. Appreciate it for what it provides for you: eyesight, transportation, pleasure, opposeable thumb use/grasping, hearing music, and myriad other things we take for granted. Don't compare your body to anyone else's. You will, but just forgive yourself and return to appreciating what you have and taking good care of it (see 2 & 3, above).
3) Explore your spirituality. For now, forget every definition of spirituality you've ever heard before, and try this one: Spirituality is the way that the Divine, or whatever eternal, formless essence you may or may not believe in, woos your soul. What woos your soul? Truth? Beauty? Virtue? Love? Family? Adventure? NASCAR? If it penetrates your being and gets to the middle of you, consider that it's the Divine getting your attention in the way that only it can. Not sure what gets to your soul? Start with your imagination. What fascinates or interests you? Start there. If nothing interests you, I don't believe you. But if so, it might be a good idea to see a therapist, but run the other way if the first thing he or she does is suggest drugs.
Develop the "attitude of gratitude." Take time as often as you can to be thankful for any good thing in your life. Don't wait until these things are taken from you by the tides and storms of life.
4) Dispense with your God, if that God is causing you misery. The God that most Americans, and I assume most Portlanders, are introduced to through church, media, and society, is antisocial, schizophrenic, and maybe bi-polar. Most of them, including many who are actually happy themselves, will disagree with me vehemently. I would not respect a man claims to love everyone but would banish them to eternal misery for being human, so why should I respect a God who does the same? An otherworldy hell simply isn't compatible with the concept of love, although many believers do their level best to have this make sense somehow. A pontifical bible scholar I knew commented that in the Bible, God never really succeeded in changing anyone when he threatened them with misfortune, but when he promised them life, they came in droves.
A wise rabbi, when confronted by atheists who told him, "Rabbi, I don't believe in God," would always reply, "Which one?" If you wish to get to know the Divine on the Divine's terms, it would be a good idea to start with this: God is love. Explore love in all its forms, meanings, and nuances. Learn by doing. Make love your life's study, and you will learn more about God than most people in the history of humanity.
It also helps to be an adult about God and stop asking for stuff for yourself or changes in your circumstances. God is not Santa Claus, rewarding you with favor for bribing him with good behavior. I heard another rabbi say that God put us in a physical universe and we are subject to its laws. So when hard times come, it is not for us to say, "Why?" but rather, "What now shall we do?" If you want God to answer your prayers powerfully, ask God to break your heart with compassion for his people, or ask him to show you ways to serve those who need you. Both of those, incidentally, will lead to happiness, if not deep contentment. Yes, I think God has a sense of the ironic.
(Note that many people are basically happy despite their religious beliefs, which are otherwise inconsistent with their beliefs about love. This is demonstrative of the fact that there are many ways to be happy, inconsistencies are allowed, and that this list does not equal the 10 Commandments, but rather 10 Suggestions.)
5) Learn that you are not your emotions. You have emotions, but they do not define you, nor do they determine "how you are" at any given time. If they did, the human race would have perished long ago.
6) Develop a daily practice. For me, it's meditation and prayer. For others, it's art. For many, it's exercise, or taking a walk to enjoy nature. The key is same time, same place, every day. This is time for your soul, and you get to determine what it looks like. Consistency within the practice (doing the same thing) should be balanced with making small changes and experimenting with new things. It should change over time or it will become stale. Just as you change over time, or you will become stale.
7) Be a participant, not a spectator. This may affect the amount of TV you watch or the hours you spend at your gaming console. Some happy people watch TV, some don't. Pretty much every unhappy person I know watches a lot of TV. Life is made for relating with people, not machinery broadcasting images that someone else has chosen for you. I don't believe that what's on TV makes people unhappy, so much as they get too comfortable with the habit and don't live lives of passion and spirit. Can't think of anything? Join a dragon boat team.
8) Love people. That means you will have to talk to some of them, and listen to some of them, and be interested in what some of them have to say. When they compliment you, never take it for granted. The smallest compliment is a gift and love is expressed in both the giving and receiving. Of course loving yourself is part of this. (Life's difficult and you need a friend. Start with being one to yourself.) Warning: Love may lead to having great friends, community, and adventures of the heart.
9) Learn to love the rain and clouds. Do you enjoy all the pretty maples, rhododendrons, ferns, Douglas-fir trees? How about the snow on Mt. Hood? It's our weather that makes this possible. As one who comes from a land of regular wildfires and merciless drought, for me every drop of rain is a miracle and makes so much available for us. Water is life, and when the sky is filled with water, it is filled with life!
10) Do it your way. Whatever it is. It's yours to figure out, and once you allow yourself to be the arbiter of what's cool and what isn't, you will be free.
What are your tips for being happy? What do you struggle with? I invite your comments, and please send this blog entry to anyone you know who might be in the Other Portland.
