Happier More Often

A long letter from a friend

Resources Supporting Family

and Community Legacies Inc.

Toronto, Ontario 2009

Cover and book design by Laura Brady (www.bradytypesetting.com)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

van Bommel, Harry
Happier more often : a long letter from a friend / Harry van Bommel.

Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-55307-058-0

1.Happiness. I. Resources Supporting Family and Community
Legacies Inc. II. Title.

BJ1481.V35 2007 152.4'2 C2007-906280-6

To contact the author about speaking engagements, write or call:

Harry van Bommel

Resources Supporting Family and Community Legacies Inc.

11 Miniot Circle

Toronto, ON M1K 2K1

Canada

(416) 264 4665

harry@legacies.ca

www.legacies.ca

To Janet, Joanna and Bram

who let me join in their happiness everyday.

Foreword

Imagine yourself waiting for a long letter (say 31,000 words or so long!) from a friend of yours. The person who delivers your mail smiles when she gives you this book. Looks like a long night of reading!

I have been known to send pretty long letters to my friends in the past. In some I have written some powerful thoughts (or at least I thought so!). I also felt like there was more to say and that I should put a bit more effort into it, a little more thought.

This little book is my letter to you. I have organized it into little chunks so that it makes good bathroom, beach, car/bus/train/plane, or just-sit-around-with-a-hot-drink kind of reading. Think of it as one person's ideas right now to a friend. The thoughts are not perfect. My ideas may change (I will keep you informed) and you may like some of it and disagree with others. Some day you may read the book again and find new things with which to agree and disagree. That's great. Our thoughts and beliefs evolve over time. I am not preaching the gospel according to HvB but rather giving you an excuse to spend some time thinking about your own ideas on happiness, philosophy, etc. Happiness is an ever-evolving kind of work. It is fun too!

What do I know about happiness? Am I a psychologist or a wise man? Just because I have written other books, does that mean I know enough to write about such a big subject as happiness? No to all of the above!

But I am a learner and I am a teacher. We often learn best through preparation to teach others. Writing is a similar process. What I have learned may help you. What you learn from this book will help others you know if you pass along your thoughts. There is nothing new within the study of happiness. The information is all out there. I have just tried to condense some of it for your practical, day-to-day use.

Like you, I have my ups and downs. I wanted to figure out ways to have more of the ups, even if they last only a few seconds or minutes during particularly difficult moments in my life. I wanted to find ways to help me cope with the inevitable daily frustrations so that I could look beyond the moment to remember that I do control more of my emotions than I often credit myself.

I’m not the poster boy for being happy all the time. There are times when I feel profoundly unhappy, like when my parents died, when my first business failed, when relationships ended, or when I say good-bye to people at airports or train stations whom I love and may never see again.

This book is to remind us that we all have ways to increase the amount of time we are happy. Being happier in the present is so much easier to control than planning to be happy in the future when we accomplish something important to us, buy something we have always wanted, earn enough money to be happy, or find our soul mate.

Perhaps some of what I have learned through experience or through the experiences of others can help you feel more in control of your thoughts and feelings as well so that you have more moments of happiness too. Everything you learn and have learned, I hope you pass along to others. Together we can all get better at choosing to be happier more often.

So here is my long letter to you. I hope you find it helpful.

Happily (more often than I used to be anyway!) and gratefully yours,

Harry

Toronto, Canada

August 30, 2009

Introduction

William James said that happiness is the secret motive that drives everyone. I do not know if that is true because our motivations come from various sources including family history, pride, greed, love, and environmental pressures. I think James is right, however, that the consequences of our motives, personally, often have their route in wanting to feel good or contented. People can feel good cheating, lying and being violent when these actions achieve some of their personal goals. Their happiness is not what most of us would call good happiness – but it is happiness for them nonetheless.

This book is about the positive forms of happiness that lead people to do good while feeling good. The book was originally a long letter I wrote when I was 35 years old and gave to various friends and colleagues as a gift. I asked them for suggestions on how to improve the letter to make it more helpful for others. Then I put the letter aside and lived another 19 years!

Nineteen years is not a long time in history but it is a big chunk of my adult life. A person I had not seen in many years told me that my original letter had helped her through a difficult divorce. I was touched by her thoughtfulness in letting me know that my letter had helped her. I dusted off the original letter and read it again with much fresher eyes. Since my 35th birthday, my wife and I have had two wonderful children, have moved into our first (and probably last!) house, changed our jobs to self-employment, and began home schooling our children – which has been a great source of happiness for all of us.

Have my thoughts from the age of 35 stood the test of time–at least the test of a relatively short time? They have, I’m pleased to say. My views years ago are quite consistent with my views now, only I have more experiences and stories to tell. There are some universal truths and they have helped me through some difficult times in the past decades as they had in my early years. Perhaps some of these truths will help you too.

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The word happiness, like the word love, is often used to mean too many things to many people. The definition of happiness could be:

characterized by good fortune; prosperous; having or demonstrating pleasure; gratified.

experiencing joy, pleasure and bliss.

having, showing or causing a feeling of great pleasure, joy, contentment, satisfaction.

a sense of subjective well-being.

the capacity to enjoy life.

Few people can tell you what happiness is yet most of us know when we are happy. We are often happy when a child trusts us to hold their hand as we cross the street. We are happy to see someone we love accomplish something they set out to do. We are often happy when a best friend remembers to thank us for being who we are. We are often happy when we feel needed, valued, loved and liked.

I do not know how to define happiness any better than that–knowing that we are needed, valued, loved and liked yet understanding that happiness is something we give ourselves. Like dignity, persistence, pride and honor, happiness is something inside us that we control more often than not.

Can you be happy all the time? Do you want to be happy all the time? Do you need long periods of suffering, guilt and unhappiness to benefit fully from being happy? How is happiness different from having fun, or laughing or feeling peaceful or feeling contented or satisfied? What makes you happy? What makes you unhappy? Can anything make you happy or sad?

Lots of questions....maybe this little book will help you find a few of your own answers. The purpose of this book (or very long letter!) is very simple: to help all of us choose to be happy more often than we are now. That is it. Nothing too fancy. Not happy all the time. Just to be happy more often than we are now. I wrote the book because I have been able to choose to be happier a little more often than I used to. Like all writers I hope that some of my experiences can help other people. Writing also makes choosing to be happy more real to me. It is hard to write down your thoughts and not try to practice what you have preached to others! You can do the same for your family and friends!

If this book helps you feel happy just a bit more than you are now, then I hope you will pass on that happiness to others–a smile will do. Remember what I say is not what is important in this book. There are no unique ideas anymore about happiness. But you are unique, so your approach to life will be your own. Find things that are useful in this book and pass them on to others. Remind yourself of what helps your happiness now and do more of it.

Much of my own writing is in the field of caregiving, hospice palliative care and grieving. My work with people who are dying constantly reminds me that what we tend to regret most not having spent enough time with the people we love most doing the things we love to do. We have spent too much doing things we do not love and doing it with people whose names we cannot even remember any more. Make changes now so you don’t have those regrets.

One last little suggestion–feel free to mark up the book any time an inspiration strikes you. Use the margins or the top and bottom of the pages to write down any thoughts that you would like to remember. I have also left a few pages at the end of the book for you to use for Personal Thoughts and Ideas. If you should read this book again in 10 years, you will be able to see how your thoughts and beliefs have stayed the same and how some have evolved into a wiser way to enjoy the life you have.

If you like what you are learning, pass the book on to others. Remember that younger people in your life could benefit from this book just as older people and everyone in between. Everyone can choose to be happier more often starting today.

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