Choosing Happiness in 2024: A Resolution for Contentment | Ep. 80
In the latest podcast episode with host, Pat McCalla, and guest Brandon Lopez, the focus was on choosing happiness in 2024. The conversation explored the dynamic nature of happiness, emphasizing its continuum and the vital role of gratitude in fostering contentment. The discussion challenged the idea of entitlement to happiness, highlighting that it's a reaction to circumstances and a deliberate choice.
The episode drew inspiration from Paul's insight on contentment, emphasizing gratitude for anything above nothing. The conversation encourages you to break free from self-limiting beliefs, to make happiness a conscious choice, and to find joy in daily experiences. It touches on the motives behind seeking happiness, connecting it to the desire for love and importance.
The overarching message was clear: happiness is a choice, and the resolution for 2024 is to actively choose happiness and embrace contentment in every aspect of life. We hope you enjoy this episode and let’s choose happiness each day in 2024!
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Transcript
Unknown
Gray Areas podcast episode of: ::Unknown
Get ready for a thought provoking conversation that challenges preconceptions, embraces gratitude, and inspires you to make happiness a conscious decision. So without further adieu, let's dive into the episode.
::Unknown
So, Brandon, when's the last time you've been happy? I've been happy a lot recently, actually. Well, for one, I was at your house last night, and you made us try to know that. Good for us. That was. That was good. That made me happy. Yeah. There was a lot to be happy about with. Yeah, Yeah.
::Unknown
I'm here with you in this moment, you know, sitting here with you. So that makes you happy? Yes, I say that because I'm your father in law and you don't disappoint. You have some. Good, good. I appreciate that. Yeah. Christmas ain't going to be good this year, so I got to rack up those points.
::Unknown
Yesterday morning, I picked up my daughter Keena from her class at church, and she just started screaming, My daddy's here, my daddy's here.
::Unknown
And of course, my kids made me. I
::Unknown
couldn't even fight. And I can attest to our listeners that Keena is
::Unknown
one of the most beautiful, gorgeous little girls in the whole world.
::Unknown
It's all right, you know. I know she's my granddaughter. The most beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
::Unknown
Well, the reason I ask that is because for the last couple of weeks, you and I have had quite a few discussions with different people about happiness.
::Unknown
So we thought as we jump into: ::Unknown
So let's let's start by just defining it, because that was part of the conversation we've had. You've had conversations with people. I've had conversations with people, and part of it comes down to people going, Well, what is happiness actually? So what do you think are some synonyms? I'm trying to throw a word out to it makes me sound smart.
::Unknown
What do you think some synonyms of happiness are? Like, if you. If something good, what is happiness? Well, add some words.
::Unknown
I would describe happiness with other words as being fulfillment, satisfaction, gratefulness, joy.
::Unknown
You know, things of that. Yeah. Yeah. Contentment, contentment. Contentment. You said gratefulness, right? Because I know that was one that we came up with after.
::Unknown
Seemed like
::Unknown
as we unpack this, the more you and I thought about this, the more we kind of landed with many. If you have a lack of gratefulness or you're ungrateful and trying to struggle with happiness,
::Unknown
what do you think are some antonyms? You know, as we as we talked about it, I remember one night around the fire, we were talking about antonyms, the opposite of a synonym for people that English classes along with the public school.
::Unknown
And you never actually learned that. What's an antonym of of of happiness?
::Unknown
Well, typically the first thing that comes to your mind is like sadness. Yeah. Yeah, well, oftentimes we get disappointment, depression, feeling of just being depressed and not necessarily like depression. A lot of times we associate depression with more of a chronic issue or mental illness. Sometimes you can just be depressed.
::Unknown
Not nothing necessarily wrong with that. Yeah. Few others might. You know, a lot of people, if they feel frustrated, they might be like, well, I'm not I can't be happy if I'm frustrated or angry.
::Unknown
So, yeah, you know what? We you know, it was really fascinating when we were talking about this. You brought up a great point
::Unknown
you were saying that it's happiness kind of on a continuum, right?
::Unknown
Like like, isn't it? How did you describe it?
::Unknown
You remember that? Yeah. So I always see happiness
::Unknown
as. Yeah, kind of on a continuum. It's not necessarily
::Unknown
like I'm happy or not. Yeah, you're not necessarily happy or you're not. It's more so, like, how happy are you? Yeah, Yeah. How happy, aren't you? Yeah. And I think and at first when you said that, here's what's interesting.
::Unknown
When it first when you said that
::Unknown
I was a little lost because I was like, I know I don't get quite where you're going with that, but
::Unknown
now keep going. Yes, it really landed for me. Yeah. So I think a lot of times is that when we think of happiness, we can even put like
::Unknown
good and bad in the same kind of conversation.
::Unknown
As far as the continuum is like it's, you know, good. It's more like how good is something and how good isn't something, right? But the way I like to see it is that oftentimes we like to a lot of times when we make something like you can only be happier or not happy. Yeah, oftentimes we put the that line there ourselves.
::Unknown
Yeah, right. And that's what I find with most people. And I think this is where a lot of people might struggle with happiness and where we probably found when we were talking to other people where their struggle with is that their expectation for what would qualify as anything for them to be happy about. Yeah, was just so beyond what I think is kind of just the regular threshold.
::Unknown
Yeah. So for instance, like what I the way I kind of, you know, my philosophy around the human experience is that we don't necessarily deserve to be happy. That makes sense. I think when I look around the world, obviously there's no shortage of grief in this world. Yeah, right. And then seeing Coyne of that, you could say like, okay, if there's a great supply of grief, there must be also a great supply of you know, goodness.
::Unknown
And I think that's absolutely true. But as far as the human experience goes, is that especially it's kind of hard to see this as, you know, American and within our culture, depending on where you're at. But a lot of times is
::Unknown
go about life thinking that we deserve and that we're entitled to be happy and to have things come to us, you know, man, is that not true?
::Unknown
Our culturally, we probably live in a culture that yeah, from the time you were a kid, every advertisement that comes on,
::Unknown
it's almost like it's an expectation. Like you deserve to be happy.
::Unknown
you're perfect. But before we go there, you're all these other. Yeah, you play, too. But before we go there, because you started transitioning to something else we talked about, we got to get to.
::Unknown
But where that landed for me, Brandon, when we were sitting around the fire, you talked about that. That happiness is kind of on a continuum. I thought that is why some people, when they go when were you happy? They they think, well, I can't be happy and sad at the same time. But actually you can like it's not going to be that explosive happiness where it's just like, man, I just want to.
::Unknown
My heart just wants to burst. I'm you know, I'm looking at my little granddaughter running to me, saying, Poppy, that's that that there's nothing but happiness. But if I were to lose my wife and she passed away and two weeks after the funeral, I'm sitting there and I remember a memory that we had. It was just a beautiful memory.
::Unknown
And I may be sitting there in my kitchen alone at that moment crying because I'm sad, but I'm remembering a happy memory. So I'm happy and sad at the same time. So that's where when you talked about that that night, I was like, Wow, that is true.
::Unknown
that there's this continuum of happiness that we have. And so I think that will help people understand a little bit.
::Unknown
And what's interesting about that kind of example that you just gave to you on that continuum of happiness that would fall, in my perspective, more of being content because
::Unknown
contentment is a lot having to do with a state of happiness in a current condition that you're in,
::Unknown
right? Yes. It's not just in. So like, wait, a state of happiness in the current condition that you're in.
::Unknown
Yeah. Now, see, this is where you're really good at this because you keep transitioning to this. Now we're jumping into this part because this is so good, so important. And that's where you were talking a little bit about where we think we deserve happiness.
::Unknown
2000 years ago, one of the greatest philosopher and theologians that ever walked this planet guy named Paul wrote that he found the secret to contentment.
::Unknown
We could probably because we were talking about synonyms, say the secret of happiness. Right? And he said, Any any. And he actually is referring to something that actually thousands of years before him, a guy named Jobe wrote, If we came in with nothing naked, I came into the world and naked, I'm going to leave the world. So I start with nothing and I end with nothing, anything above nothing is a reason to be content, happy,
::Unknown
grateful.
::Unknown
Right? And that's where you were talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So like
::Unknown
say that your baseline of what your expectation of the human experience ought to be, if we bring that down to you. Well if the basic experience that the average human will experience is more on the line of, of suffering I guess you could say, or if that's more like the basic line that anything that is above suffering is going to be so much more you can be so much more grateful for it.
::Unknown
You could actually experience it in more of, you know, more fulfillment with that. And the reason why I think a lot of people struggle with happiness is that we go about life more so, like talking about like we're entitled to happiness. We have a right to be happy. We have this privilege to be happy. The issue with that that I find with most people is if you put the threshold in which you can experience happiness all the way up there until you are able to actually
::Unknown
experience happiness from the very, very high line of the continuum.
::Unknown
Exactly, Yeah. For one, if you think that you deserve something, you are now entitled to it, which means you cannot be grateful in gratefulness and happiness usually always are intertwined. I think that's such an important point to make. They are. They are. They are linked. They're tied. You can't separate. You can't separate. Yeah. So if you can't really be grateful
::Unknown
and you can't be grateful for something if you deserve it, because it's what's expected, You know, I deserve this job.
::Unknown
I deserve this raise. I deserve this family. Yeah. You can't really be grateful because you already expect there's an expectation. Expectation? Yeah, but the problem now is and I think a lot of people have, is if this is your expectation that you deserve these things in your title, do these things that anything less than those things now that mean something's wrong with you,
::Unknown
now you're unhappy, now you're probably feeling depressed.
::Unknown
Now you're disappointed and frustrated. And I think that the kind of
::Unknown
we've this into it. I think a lot of people, when you live in this kind of way, you're going to run into this problem of operating with this kind of motivation that is shame, self-hate, negative talk. Yeah, because you're experiencing nothing that truly makes you happy because you deserve that.
::Unknown
You feel like you deserve happiness. Which again, let's make sure we also define that. I believe that happiness is more fleeting of like a more of a fleeting emotion. And I'm not saying fleeting as a negative way. It's more of a when we feel happiness, a lot of it is just a reaction to what's going on. It's almost like
::Unknown
it's almost like trying to harness the wind, like you try to grab it and maybe you can harness for a moment, but then it's gone.
::Unknown
So.
::Unknown
So what you're describing, right, is if you're sitting out and you're and you're paying attention to those moments and and there's a beautiful sunset. And so you sit there and you choose to be happy, content, grateful for the beauty of that moment. But it's gone that the sunsets, the colors disappear and it's gone.
::Unknown
That's kind of where you talking and that's okay.
::Unknown
Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. That you're not going to have that ongoing 24 seven feeling of of that emotion, of happiness. And I think the way that we the world around us tells us
::Unknown
the other way around, right? Everything that we all the products, all the services that we are bombarded with on TV, on the radio, online, through Facebook, Instagram, all this stuff is like everything is based off of convenience and making you happier.
::Unknown
So anything that we don't experience that actually makes us happy because our expectations are so high, then we feel depressed and angry, frustrated. And so what usually happens in my observation with people is we end up, you know, having a lot of negative self-talk, a lot of shame, a lot of self-hate because we're not getting what we want out of life.
::Unknown
So something must be wrong. Now, the problem with this,
::Unknown
this is very interesting. The problem with this is that most people I'll say most or many, not everybody, many people don't want to hate themselves forever. Yeah. So what happens and this is something I've been sitting on,
::Unknown
what happens is that their current reality becomes a punishment because they feel like anything that they're living out isn't good enough.
::Unknown
Right? So they associate their current reality as a punishment. And what do we do when we feel punished?
::Unknown
We want to rebel. Yeah, Yeah. And oftentimes and this is something that we can tie in now to is we learn that at a really young age. So, yeah, young kids, you're seeing that firsthand. Yeah. Yeah. exactly. Yeah. You don't have to teach them to do that.
::Unknown
And yeah, we just go on all the way through adulthood. Yeah, that's our natural reaction to that. Yeah. Aren't you happy We grew out of that? Whatever. So. So what does that mean? That
::Unknown
there's some self-loathing there, there's some frustration going on because we feel like we should get this or deserve this and we don't get it.
::Unknown
So there's some shame that comes with that. And then you're saying rebelling.
::Unknown
What do you mean? Yeah. So what I mean by rebelling is that we're now left with options of how do we react with what our current reality is. One, we have
::Unknown
to break down our self beliefs that are wrong and and then create new frameworks, stop reading or we self-destruct or when a lot of people do is they create themselves a new reality.
::Unknown
And so this kind of goes into on the way here we're talking about like oftentimes we talk about like, are you happy or not self-medicating, self-medicate, like, yeah, creating a new reality. That's where we get into dangerous things and self-medicating with whatever that Absolutely our drug of choice, if you will. Yeah. And we seek happiness through all these different things that are more of just
::Unknown
hit to the brain of dopamine that makes us feel good.
::Unknown
So we see this as, you know, sexual partners. We see this as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, all these different things.
::Unknown
And it makes us see then like, all right, right now we have to ask ourselves is like, what is the motive, though, now behind happiness? What actually why is it that we want to be happy? Why is it that we want to be sad now?
::Unknown
This is getting deep. This is getting deep. So
::Unknown
What's the motive?
::Unknown
That's what you're asking. What is the motive?
::Unknown
my theory is our motive to be happy is there's there's two words that come to my mind, and I use them, you know, pretty much the same.
::Unknown
They're synonymous to me is to be loved and to be important to. And because if you want to be loved, the way that you feel loved is to be known and to feel important and to be important, you have to feel,
::Unknown
to be known and to be a minority. Another synonym of important would be valued. Value be a priority, loved to be valued like.
::Unknown
That's all I would totally agree with that, Brandon, because
::Unknown
there's not a human being that's ever been on this planet that doesn't crave that from the time they first start learning to walk or even before they're going to walk, right? They want to be loved, valued, they want to feel important.
::Unknown
So you're saying that's the motivation, the underlying motivation and happiness is tied to that?
::Unknown
yeah. That when we feel happy, there's usually I'm feeling loved and valued is connected to that. And we see this as like a counterfeit in many things around our lives. For instance,
::Unknown
we see this in status. So a lot of people that or a lot of products that we see, whether it be cars, watches, clothing, brands, they
::Unknown
if I were going to feel sadness that you have it make you feel important, which makes you feel happy now it's a counterfeit because it's just a thing.
::Unknown
Yeah, right. We see this usually fleeting. Fleeting? Yeah.
::Unknown
We see this as somebody that has, let's say, even like many sexual partners. And what they're doing is they're trying to make themselves feel loved and important by bringing about happiness, which is counterfeit. They see this in anything else. Like, well, usually when we see any kind of abuse with drugs or alcohol, it's a escaping of reality.
::Unknown
So this is what happens that I've noticed or this is kind of playing in my head another way that we rebel, whether it's through self-destruction, but also changing your reality. And this is going to more of an extreme end of things, right When I'm about to go on the extreme end of things, if and feeling important, feeling loved is the core motivation for wanting to be happy and satisfied and feeling for full fulfillment in life then.
::Unknown
And if your current reality isn't giving you that, what people then often do is they create themselves a new reality. Yeah, yeah. That they can live that out. And so I was reading this book by Dale Carnegie, and he was talking about a head of the head physician at an insane center. And he was asking questions and they were talking about like, yeah, so half of our patients, they are clinically insane because they had actual damage to their brain cells, whether it be through
::Unknown
toxins, any kind of, you know, substance abuse, injury and trauma to the head.
::Unknown
And so that. Yeah, but what they notice that in post mortem when they looking at the the brain of the other half of their
::Unknown
patients there was nothing wrong with the brain they look like yours and I or everybody else half of their patients what they found in me at least at this time what they concluded was have these patients there was nothing necessarily, quote unquote, wrong with them as far as like organically, as far as, you know, trauma done to their head, like damage to the brain.
::Unknown
So what they concluded was at this time is that those patients that really were so unhappy, so unloved, felt so unimportant in their reality that they created a new reality
::Unknown
to make them feel better. So he gave an example of this patient, this woman, that she wanted, a loving husband that respected her, that she wanted
::Unknown
status. She wanted the the family and the kids.
::Unknown
But she had a very abusive husband. She did not have this status. She didn't have kids. So what she ended up doing was she made this reality in her head that she I think she I can't remember her name. She was like she made up a new name for herself, like Lady something. She was married to this British guy of royalty, had kids, and she would refer to them as kids,
::Unknown
like, my kids came and visit me.
::Unknown
The whole fantasy. This is she's crazy now. This is a far you know, this is definitely an extreme end of things. But we see this play out in mental illness a lot of times. We see this played out in a lot of different people as far as
::Unknown
when we see somebody and this is the danger of somebody that is very unhappy, very unsatisfied with their life.
::Unknown
And the reality
::Unknown
is content. This content, there's usually three options that you're left with. You either have to break self beliefs and then create new frameworks to operate under.
::Unknown
You self-destruct and or in another way of self destruct is you just rebel because now your reality is seen as a punishment because you're not happy. So you create a new reality.
::Unknown
And when we have
::Unknown
groups or communities that help support those ideologies too, this is where it gets interesting. And this is where like understanding like brain science is actually pretty fun and interesting in social sciences
::Unknown
is that when you have somebody that creates a new reality for them and they plug themselves into a community that supports them or a family that supports them are only enhancing and
::Unknown
edifying this new reality.
::Unknown
Yeah, So now they're actually being able to live out this reality as a happy individual feeling fulfillment. But it's not if you want to pretend work and satisfaction. But that's how now they're perceiving the world around them, that's how they perceive their reality. It's very interesting. Yeah,
::Unknown
so important as we jump into: ::Unknown
I don't remember the last time I was happy or I can't remember ever being happy. And while that is a continuum, as we discussed, you know, is it that explosive? My heart's going to just burst. I'm so happy. Or is it? I'm sad, but I'm remembering a happy memory. So there's there's all kinds of different levels of happiness.
::Unknown
ected tightly to contentment.: ::Unknown
teners, I think as we go into: ::Unknown
you will have a plethora, thousands, tens of thousands of opportunities in the next coming coming weeks and months that there's something above the baseline of nothing right yet you and yet a good meal that's worth being happy choosing happiness or contentment.
::Unknown
You saw a sunset, you know, you just you looked at your spouse, your significant other, your child, your grand kid, whatever it might be.
::Unknown
But it's above the baseline of nothing, which is worse than being content or happy about.
::Unknown
think to the song it's almost: ::Unknown
This is the day the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it.
::Unknown
And you remember I texted this to you the night after we had this conversation around the fire. And I go, Brandon, I think I thought of the verse that sums it all up. This is the day, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Part of our problem with happiness and contentment is
::Unknown
we're looking at the past, which we can't do anything about, or we're worried about the future promises.
::Unknown
This is the day. This day. And then he says, I will rejoice. I will. It's an act of will. It's a choice.
::Unknown
you're a trainer. You like, you train people right in the gym and you know that How much is connected to, like discipline, Right? Just you're just making a choice. You make a choice on what you're going to eat.
::Unknown
You can make a choice on whether you're going to get up and go to the gym. I think happiness is the same way, wouldn't you say? absolutely.
::Unknown
Like it's an act of will. A lot of times. Like I'm not going to miss this moment because this is above the baseline of nothing. I came with nothing. I'm leaving with nothing.
::Unknown
So right now I'm going to choose to be happy.
::Unknown
right now, as we launch into: ::Unknown
let's make sure that we resolve because we're doing resolutions, resolve the during the day, you make a choice to find those many, many things that you're going to have that are above the baseline of nothing
::Unknown
and then choose happiness.
::Unknown
Choose contentment. Absolutely. And when we don't do that, it leads to what are some of the things you mentioned before? Sadness, anger, frustration, depression? Yeah. Creating a false reality or a fantasy world of dream. Dream of it on the dream of it. Yeah. So I think that's a great challenge for us to go into. So I'm going to try to do that
::Unknown
today, this week to choose happiness.
::Unknown
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
::Unknown
So, Brandon, thanks so much for being on the No Gray Areas podcast. Again, before we go, though, we talked about making the choice for happiness, and I'm going to ask you to choose to lie to me.
::Unknown
It's the way we end our it's ironic, but two truths and a lie.
::Unknown
There's no way you're going to stop.
::Unknown
I gotcha. I know you two. Well,
::Unknown
First one. I have stabbed a guy in the face before
::Unknown
the second one. Okinawa was the first flight I ever been on.
::Unknown
And third one, I had a mullet when I was four years old.
::Unknown
Okay. You lost me. Wow. You stabbed a guy in the face
::Unknown
When you went to Okinawa, that was the first flight you had ever been on. And you had a mullet at
::Unknown
four years old. I've gone with the mullet. It's true. I mean, look, look, right now you got this. Yeah. Yeah, I did, in fact, have them all. And when I was four, I did.
::Unknown
was magic. All right? I got a: ::Unknown
You know, this. This stabbed someone in the face
::Unknown
I'm going to. That's true. That is true. Okay, Tell us that story.
::Unknown
Yeah. So Okinawa was not the first slide in on. I was like, Yeah, I thought it was. Yeah, I thought it was. No, I wouldn't go into Virginia when I was younger,
::Unknown
when I was doing martial arts, we were doing night events and I was working with one of my instructors and I was the attacked attacker and we kept just going through repetitive motion over and over and over.
::Unknown
And he was like, I want to go fast, let's go faster, let's go faster. Right? And then I we went for one. He messed up and it was a knife, right?
::Unknown
And it was it was like a real knife. Like, it wasn't like I could do this. And one cut me, but it was definitely sharp. Like, Yeah, yeah.
::Unknown
Point could still hurt him,
::Unknown
so I can still remember the feeling of the tip of the blade hitting his, like, right above his eyebrow, scraping down his skull and like, stretching his skin
::Unknown
and, like, pull back. And I was like, high school, like I was like maybe 14 at the time. I'll see, you know, like, yeah, yeah. And I pull back and I was like,
::Unknown
He like, looks at me. Keep going, keep going. He starts bleeding. Like, I know you're like, you're bleeding. Like, I'm not like, your head instructor comes alive. You have. And I was like, standing the face. And he was like, sure. He's like,
::Unknown
It's not your fault, Brian. It is his fault. He didn't defend him. So he was showing you how.
::Unknown
How a poor defense. Yeah. Yeah. So I got, like, for a couple of days my nickname was Slasher, so. Yeah, that is true. That's good. But no, no, not out of ill intent. I did not stab somebody out of sight. Yeah, good to know. All right, good. Well, thanks again, Brian. Thanks for being here. Those were good teachers that like.
::Unknown
Appreciate it. All right. See you next time.
::Unknown
g you to a fulfilling year in: ::Unknown
Stay tuned for more Empowering conversations in our Future podcast episode that drops every other Wednesday. We'll catch you next time. No grey areas.
