being happy! by andrew matthews (1988)

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
- John Milton


One of my uncles pressed me to read this book when I was about 12 years old saying that he had found it quite enlightening and helpful in his life. I dutifully perused the volume but did not find any earth-shaking revelations and found it rather disappointingly mundane. My uncle afterwards asked me how I found the book and I said, “uh, it was ok”. I am wondering now why my uncle even sought my opinion in the first place. Maybe because at that time, he still had no kids, could not recall his own childhood, or maybe have forgotten that at 12-years, one is invincible and has yet to discover the opposite pole of succeeding and is still on the world-is-mine-for-the-taking frame of mind. Worry is an alien verb at 12.

At some point, 12-year olds do discover mortality – they find out that people get sick, they die; that people enter and leave our lives; that our parents, we strongly suspect, may not be infallible but we do not want to be responsible for telling them so (or maybe we want them to remain infallible, up there with the resident in the Vatican), that the economy enters into a recession and we suddenly start worrying about the mortgage; that people figure in road mishaps no matter what precautions they take; that politics may get into the best of intentions; that sometimes fitness and merit is not all there is to nail that promotion; that people intentionally renege on their commitments; and that plans turn out to be – well, plans.

Before we decide to be not happy (according to Abraham Lincoln, a man who had more than enough reason to be unhappy but went on to become of the greatest Presidents of the United States, “most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be”), Matthews prods to ask ourselves these questions:
1. Do you have enough air to breathe, do you have enough food for today?
2. Can you still see? Walk? Hear?
3. What is the worst thing that could happen, and if it did, would you still be alive today?
4. Are you taking yourself too seriously?
5. What are you learning from this situation?
6. If things really seem serious, will you be ok for the next five minutes?
7. What else can you do?

Matthews tells this little story to emphasize a point. “Fred might, on just having lost his job, decide that he now has the opportunity to have a new work experience, to explore new possibilities, and to exercise his independence in the workplace. His brother Bill might, under the same circumstances, decide to jump off a 20-storey building and end it all. Given the same situation, one man rejoices while the other man commits suicide! One man sees disaster and the other man sees opportunity.”

Mathhews, however, shares that “probably the greatest way to feel better about yourself is to do something for someone else. Excessive worry and self-pity grow out of self-occupation. The moment you start making other people happy, whether you are sending them flowers or digging their garden or giving them your time, you feel better. It is automatic. It is simple.”