Happiness Is My New Year's Resolution

We all hear about them; we all do them: New Year's resolutions. Lose twenty pounds, join a gym, start that new business, finish what I started. And yet, so often, they become empty words thrown into the void, words that we said because we had to. What are New Year's resolutions anyway? Why do we make them? What's the point?

Simple: the point is to be happy. You want to lose 20 pounds because you believe that will make you feel better about yourself. You promise to join a gym because that's where people lose pounds; therefore, the gym is the key to happiness. You tell your mother that you will go back to school and finish that degree because that will make her happy; therefore, she will get off your back, and then you will be happy. Without even thinking about it, we are desperately trying to trace a path that ends in one place: happiness.

But here's the rub: all those things that you promised to do fall off the rails pretty quick because you have no energy, no motivation, and no support. In other words, the path to happiness gets thwarted by the simple fact that you are not happy. Quite the vicious circle, isn't it? So how can one ever get out of this pathetic hamster wheel?

The answer is: you decide to feel better, and then you look for help. In my case, it was a book that brought me to another book that then brought me to a real person, or to be more precise, to a community with the same interests and objectives that I had.

I have always been an avid reader, and in the last few years, I have become an audiobook fanatic. I love audiobooks because I can listen, no effort required, and even do a bit of multitasking: I can listen to the book while cooking, cleaning, or walking the dog. And how do I get access to so many books? Books are expensive, right? Wrong. You can borrow books through your public library. My public library system has a wonderful digital borrowing system that allows me free access to thousands of audiobooks.

Before you start thinking that I am this optimistic because my life must be awesome, let me tell you where I was last year when my resolution started. It was March 10th, 2020, when the phone rang. My mother said that my elderly father was in ICU overseas. I had no real money to travel, but I couldn't leave my mother alone in this, so I bit the bullet and put that international plane ticket on a credit card. I made it on the nip of time: the day after my arrival, that country closed its borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic (you may have heard of it). I spent the next nine months down there. My father was in the ICU for a month and then in a shared hospital room for another month. I was his only companion because my mother was over 70 years old and therefore restricted from entering the hospital due to the Covid-19 risk. I was lucky I had vacation days and a special 2-week quarantine time offered by my employer to keep my job. Still, for a month, I lived in a hospital room, sleeping in a cot, wearing a face mask 24/7, sharing the small space with my delirious father, another patient, and his caregiver.

During that time, audiobooks were my salvation. I would download them to my phone and listen for hours on end. I listen to some fiction work and a lot of self-help books. In the middle of this whole debacle, I realized how happy I felt that I got to take care of my father. He had been a loving father but with a narcissistic personality that made it hard to communicate with him. But here, as he drifted between unconsciousness and delirium, I was able to love him. I bathed him, fed him when he was awake, and tied his restraints when his mind wandered away. And even that heartbreaking deed felt like an act of love.

The months after he went home weren't easy either. His recovery was slow, the money was running out, and the many debts that his impulsive, narcissistic habits had created loomed on us. And yet, somehow, one by one, my mother and I overcame every single obstacle. By the time things fell more balanced, I also felt strong and resilient.

During those many months, I never stopped listening to audiobooks—some new, some that I had to listen to before. Among the new, I tried At Zero, by Joe Vitale, who you may know from the movie The Secret. That book introduced me to two beautiful things: the practice of Ho'opononpono and the process of What If.

Ho'oponopono is an ancient yet straightforward practice. As frequently as you can, you repeat four sentences:

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you.

Wait. What? Do you mean to tell me you spend the whole day saying you're sorry? Sorry for what? What do I have to be sorry for? I've done nothing!

Simple: You are asking yourself for forgiveness and telling yourself, "I love you." You need forgiveness for creating your own suffering, for every time that your thoughts and actions have hurt yourself or someone else. And then you say thank you for the opportunity to correct course and declare that you are worthy of love. Because it doesn't matter if you can get the Avengers' whole cast to fall in love with you, you will still be unhappy until you learn to love yourself.

The second practice the book introduced me to was the What If process. In a nutshell, for every situation, you consider the possibility, just the possibility, of it going right. What if I do get a raise? What if I get that call for the interview? What if I meet someone wonderful next week? The point is to get out of the harmful habit of thinking about the worst-case scenarios and switch to great-case scenarios to make you feel better. You do it just because it feels better. Because the truth is, thinking about the worst-case scenario doesn't prepare you in any way for it. It only makes you afraid, stressed out, and rends you useless, all crouch down in a corner waiting for the sky to fall over your head. No great ideas ever came from that scary corner.

I was curious about this What If practice. In the book, Joe Vitale mentioned that another author, Mendhi Audlin, had popularized it. Mendhi wrote an excellent, easy-to-read book called What If It All Goes Right. Of course, my next step was to get that audiobook. And boy, oh boy, did it change my life. Not just because the book itself is great, but because I found out there is a What If Up community, where you can get in touch with other like-minded people and search together for answers.

The process is called "What if Up" because we aim to phrase possibilities in a positive, uplifting manner, instead of phrasing them into doom-day scenarios, or what is called "What If Downing." When you What If Up, there is always a will and a way. When you What If Down, you stay stuck.

Fueled by the great advice on the book What if It All Goes Right, I decided to search for more possibilities. I found out about a Facebook group called the What If Up Club, where you can join for free and learn more about this helpful process. I was then presented with another possibility: a 21-day What If Up Challenge. Did anyone say Challenge? Bring it!

I did my first Challenge in November, and it rocked my world. Finally, here I was, surrounded (virtually because of the pandemic) by people that, like me, wanted to live a better life. An online community where my dreams and desires were met with "that could work," instead of "how the f..k are you planning to do that." Since I joined that current of positive energy, I've completed many tasks that used to feel overwhelming and found inspiration for new ways to bring my ideas to real fruition. It takes a village to raise a child. And it takes a cheerful village to sustain you as an adult.

There you have it: my New Year’s resolution is happiness. But since I already accomplished that, I now declare that my resolution is to stay happy. With a little help from my friends.

If you are interested in making positive changes and feeling energized, maybe the Team Up Challenge is for you. Here is a referral link that will take you to the Team Up Challenge (this is an affiliate link).