“How to Be Happy: The Power of Positive Thinking”

By Reverend James Kubal-Komoto

Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church

Des Moines, Washington

January 17, 2010

            My words with you this morning are the second part of a three-part sermon series, and my title this morning is “How to be Happy: The Power of Positive Thinking.” In two weeks from now, my sermon will be called, “How to be Happy: The Limits of Positive Thinking.”

If you weren’t here last week, my sermon was called: “How to be Happy: The Big Picture,” and copies of that sermon are in the Welcoming Room an online at www.saltwaterchurch.org .

However, even if you were here last week, I’d like to spend just a little bit of time reviewing what I said last Sunday morning.

Last week, I shared with you something called the Happiness Formula. Remember this? H =  S + C + V . In this formula, “H” stands for how happy we usually are, “S” stands for our genetic set point, “C” stands for our circumstances, and “V” stands for the voluntary things we do and don’t do.

As I said last week, social scientists tell us that about 50 percent of our happiness is determined by our genetic set point, our predisposition to be happy or being unhappy, but surprisingly, the circumstances of our lives, only determines about 10 percent of our happiness.

This means that 40 percent of our happiness is determined by everyday thoughts and actions under our voluntary control, some things we do and don’t do every day and especially the way we think about ourselves, our lives, and the world in which we live.

            Right now, right at this very moment, I will tell you the three most important things studies show you can do if you want to have a happier life.

            Are you ready?

            Exercise more regularly, nurture your social relationships - - spending as much time with family and friends as you can, and learn to think more positively

            This morning, as my title suggests, I’m going to focus on learning to think more positively.  If you happen to be here this morning and you’re not interested in learning to think more positively, may I suggest that you go find some friends and take a brisk walk.

            This idea that how we think about our lives is actually more important than the specific circumstances of our lives is, in fact, an old one.

Sidhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, once said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”

            Marucs Aurelius, the Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher, once said, “Life is but what you deem it.”

            Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

            Viktor Frankl, the Auschwitz survivor who wrote  Man’s Search for Meaning, said, “Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

            As each of these individual suggests, it matters how we see our lives.

            What do they mean?

            There is a story about three stonecutters building a cathedral in the 14^th century. When the first stone cutter is asked what he is doing, the man replies bitterly that he is cutting stone into square blocks and will do this over and over again every day until the day he dies. When the second stonecutter is asked what is doing, he responds warmly that he is earning a living for his family, and because of his work, he, his wife, and his children have a home to live and food to eat. When the third stone cutter is asked what he is doing, he responds joyfully that he is participating in the building of a great cathedral that will be a place where for a thousand years people will experience faith, hope, and love.   

In a more modern version of essentially the same story, there was a study of people whose job it was to clean hospitals - - which was often menial, not particularly enjoyable work. Some of these hospital workers saw their jobs as just jobs, but some of them saw their jobs as integral to the healing of patients.

Guess who found their jobs more satisfying?

Many studies show that among people who have very similar life circumstances - - people who have been dealt the same cards in life, so to speak - - people who think more positively tend to be happier.

Let me share with you now some more specifics about how happy and unhappy people think differently, and let me start with how unhappy people think.

            Unhappy people tend to engage in all-or-nothing thinking. They use the words “always” and “never” a lot. Either life is always completely wonderful or life is always completely awful, and anybody with half a brain can see that life is not always completely wonderful, so it must be completely awful.

            Related to this, unhappy people tend to over-generalize and label.

            For example, an unhappy person might say, That wasn’t a very good movie, so this movie theater must never show any good movies. In fact, this whole city is pathetic and I don’t know why I live here. I must be a loser.”

            Unhappy people tend to look at a situation, pick out a single negative detail, and either magnify the importance of that single detail or simply ignore all the positive details. For example, let’s say a minister gives the best sermon of his entire life one Sunday morning. After the service, an unhappy person will tell him which single word he mispronounced.

            When an unhappy person does something well or something good happens in the life of an unhappy person, the unhappy person tends to play it down as a fluke.

            Unhappy people often jump to irrational conclusions. For example an unhappy person might think to himself or herself, “The minister didn’t smile at me when he saw me walk through the door of the church this morning. He must hate me.”

            Unhappy people tend to see their feelings about things not as transient experiences but as an accurate indicator of what things are really like. For example, an unhappy person might say, “I’m feeling a little down, so my life must truly be hopeless.”

            Unhappy people tend to take things more personally. For example, “It’s raining today because of me because nothing good ever happens in my life.” Never mind all the other people experiencing rain in their lives today.

Unhappy people tend to think in terms of “should.” “I should have done this,” “I should have done that,” “You should have done this,” or “You should have done that.” In the lives of unhappy people, things are always falling short of the way things “should” be in some perfect, idealized world that exists only in their minds.

            Does this sound familiar to you? Does it seem to fit anyone you know?

            How do happy people think? Is it merely there opposite of the way that unhappy people think? Almost, but not quite.

Do happy people think that everything is always wonderful?  Do they purposely deceive themselves about the way things really are in order to live in blissful ignorance of the harsh realities of life? No, they don’t. Happy people tend to see life as more of a mixed bag between good stuff and not-so-good stuff. The difference between happy people and unhappy people is not about what they see, but rather what they choose to pay attention to.

In other words, we all know it’s possible to take one set of facts and tell different kinds of stories about those facts, and one of the main differences between happy and unhappy people are not the facts of their lives, but the stories they choose to tell with those facts.

            So happy people and unhappy people differ in how they think in general, but studies show what really matters is how happy people and unhappy people they think differently about three different things - - themselves, their lives, and their futures.

            How do unhappy people think about these three things? You might say the universal motto among unhappy people is, “I’m no good. My world is bleak. My future is hopeless.” To help us remember this, let’s all say this together…I’m kidding.

            How do happy people think about these three things?

            Most importantly, happy people tend to think more positively about themselves.

            When I was in high school, I once went to this student conference, and somebody was handing out these buttons with “ILAC” printed on them. “ILAC” - - I, L, A, C - - stood for “I am likeable and capable.”

            I thought they were ridiculously corny and refused to wear one.

            Nevertheless, ILAC is an accurate description of how happy people tend to think of themselves. They not only like themselves, but they see themselves as capable, and believe that, more than anybody else, they have the ability to control their own lives.

             Happy people also tend to think more positively about their own lives, both their past and present.

            When reflecting on the past, instead of focusing on the one unfortunate event that scarred them for life, they focus on the positive. For example, while a unhappy person might focus on having parents who were cold and unloving, a happy person who had similar parents might gratefully remember the teacher who recognized and nurtured his or her potential.

            When reflecting on their present lives, happier people tend to be more grateful for what they already have, even if it’s not too much, rather than envious of what they don’t have. “An attitude of gratitude” is another one of those corny phrases, but it too is an accurate description of how happy people tend to think of their own lives.

            Related to both their satisfaction with themselves and their lives, studies also show that happy people don’t compare themselves and their lives to others as much as unhappy people do. They are happy when good things happen to people they know, and sad when bad things happen to people they know, but they don’t compare themselves to other people. Rather, they are more likely to judge their lives by their own internal standards.

            In fact, it seems like comparing our lives to the lives of other people is one of the worst things we can do if we want to be happy, even if we compare ourselves to people worse off. For example, some of us may have thought to ourselves this week, “I’m glad I don’t live in Haiti,” and this may have made us feel grateful, but it also might have made us feel guilty or worried that something like that would happen in the Puget Sound.

            It’s especially not good to compare ourselves with people who at least seem more fortunate than us or more successful than us. The philosopher Betrand Russell warned against this, saying, “Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied, Alexander, and Alexander, I dare say, envied Hercules, who never existed…there will also be in history or legend some person even more successful than you are,” and this, Russell warned, is a good recipe for feeling miserable.

            But I know it’s so easy to fall into this trap. I know I sometimes do. My youngest brother, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, just got his basement finished. When I heard this, I felt myself getting a little envious. “I wish I had a finished basement,” I thought to myself. “I wish I even had a basement,” I thought.

            One way to avoid the trap of social comparison is to avoid opportunities for doing it. The one section of the New York Times that I never read is the wedding announcements because they always seem to feature people who lives are seemingly so much better than mine, and in the past, after reading them, I couldn’t help thinking, “My life is pathetic.” So now, I don’t read them.

            More importantly, however, at least for me, is this…

When I reflect on my own life, I’ve come to believe that what matters is not what my house is like, my car is like, my wardrobe is like compared to anybody else’s. What matters is how satisfied I am with them.

            What matters is not how successful I am compared to anybody else. What matters is how satisfied I am with what I have done with my life.

            What matters is not what my marriage and my other relationships are like compared to anybody else’s. What matters is how satisfied I am with my marriage and other relationships.

            This may seem a selfish thing to say, but I have come to believe at the very end of my life, there is only one person whose opinion about my life will really matter, and that is my own.

            Not only do happier people tend to think more positively about themselves and their own lives, but happier people also tend to be more optimistic about the future.

            In her book, The How of Happyness, Sonya Lyubomirsky distinguishes between three kinds of optimism about the future, which I’ll call “big optimism,” “medium-sized optimism,” and “little optimism.” Big optimism is “Life is not only wonderful, but it keeps getting better and better.” Medium sized optimism is more about specific events. For example, “My flight tomorrow will arrive on time.” Little optimism is the belief that “Whatever happens during the coming day and the coming year, and they’ll certainly be both ups and downs, I’ll get through them and be okay.”

            Perhaps if we cannot embrace “big optimism,” Lyubomirsky suggests, we can at least try to embrace “little optimism.”

            Let me review a little bit here…In general, how happy people think is different than how unhappy people think, and more specifically, happier people tend to think more positively about themselves, their lives, and their futures.

 The Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, my colleague and for many years the minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City until his recent death from cancer, created a motto for himself which aptly sums up how happy people think about life: “Be who you are. Want what you have. Do what you can.” I think it’s not a bad motto.

However, at this point, what if you’re saying to yourself, “Well I think much more like an unhappy person than a happy person. What can I do?”

            The answer is simple.

            Change the way you think.

            The way we think is a habit, and like any other habit, it can be changed. Perhaps not easily, but with practice, it can be changed.

            And if  you change the way you think, you will change the way you feel, which will change the way you act, which will, in turn, will also change the way you think and feel even more. It works both ways. Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings which lead to negative actions (and inactions), which in turn lead to even more negative thoughts and feelings. Positive thoughts lead to positive feelings which lead to positive actions, which in turn lead to even more positive thoughts and feelings. Whether you spiral into bliss or depression is mostly up to you.

            But try this. Try to catch yourself. Every time you find yourself thinking like an unhappy person - - specifically about yourself, your life, or your future - - first try to catch yourself. Then try to ask yourself how you can think about your situation more positively.

            I’ve been trying to do this.

            For example, earlier this week I had to stop and get gas on my way to work. My tank was on less than empty, and it was raining. I wasn’t happy about it. I was thinking to myself, “Why am I always low on gas when it’s raining?” “I should have filled up yesterday when I wasn’t running late and had more time.” “Why do these kind of things always happen to me?”

Then I caught myself thinking negatively and asked myself, “How can I think of this more positively?” I thought, “It’s not true that I’m always low on gas when it’s raining. Actually, I’m low on gas in all sorts of whether. (It’s a way I add excitement to my life. How low can I go?) And actually, I’m lucky I realized my gas tank was so low now. I could have run out of gas on I-5 later on today and that would have been a real disaster. I’m also lucky I have a car, a job, and money to put gas in the tank.”

I then pulled into the gas station. There were already cars at three of the four pumps, which meant I had to back up to use the fourth pump, which was a pain in the butt,  but I thought to myself, “I’m lucky I don’t have to wait,” and “I don’t live in Chicago anymore, so it’s not 10 degrees outside.”

You know what? This positive thinking stuff works. If you were driving by the intersection of 1^st Avenue South and 312^th Street in Federal Way earlier this week, and saw some idiot standing in the rain smiling while pumping gas, that was me.

            Abraham Lincoln said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their mind to be,” and I think he might have been right.

            My friends, may you choose to be happy.

            So may it be. Amen.

My sources for this sermon include Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns, The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt, The How of Happyness by Sonja Lyubormirksy, The Pursuit of Happiness by David G. Meyers, and Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.