Wendy Jans

Today I read an article about finding true happiness.

Happiness is a choice.

It’s all about following your heart and your intuition.

Find a career that fulfills you  & stay true to your dreams.

Yes, it contained the ever-familiar family of cliches… the basic idea being that, in order to be happy, you have to focus on and stop neglecting yourself.

I call this mentality the “Oprah culture”.  The haggard mother is the image that always comes to mind.  The bedraggled Mom juggling screaming children, overflowing laundry baskets and peanut butter-smeared jeans.  The mom that can’t remember the last time she bought a new outfit, took a vacation… or a nap.  The Oprah culture has strict instructions for that mom: Put yourself at the top of the list.  Like the airplane stewardess says, Mom needs to give herself the oxygen mask before she can be of help to anyone else.

This makes sense.  We may be strong and resilient as humans, but when we neglect our own needs, the trickle down effect is palpable and damaging.

Over time, this “me first” mantra though, has slowly morphed from “it’s okay to tend to your needs” into “…only by focusing on YOU, will you find the path to your own true happiness”.

I have to say that I have followed that path for a long time.

And it ain’t workin’.

See, when I decided to pursue this music thing, I realized that nobody was looking out for me and I had competition lined up for miles – waiting for an opportunity to storm the fort the second I took a snack break on guard at the gate of my dreams. I had to remain vigilant, with a steely focus…On me.

It really started years ago, when I saw an Oprah show that instructed me to write down my goals.  Make a list of all the things you want to achieve in the next 5 years, Oprah said, then the next 10 years, then the next 15 years. If I did that, she promised that my goals would be cemented in the universe’s memory and my dreams would be magically accommodated. And Oprah’s guests testified –they had gone from welfare to millions, married the man of their dreams, started booming businesses…

Psychologically speaking, it all made sense to me.  It wasn’t hard to reconcile that most people simply don’t have a clear idea of what they want out of life, so they set themselves up for failure by never making a plan. And I wasn’t about to be that kind of sucker.  So I made my plan.  And I was dedicated to my plan. I moved 700 miles in hot pursuit of it, holding onto that list with an iron-clad grip.

Interestingly though, looking back, I can see that those years of self-focus were littered with depression, anxiety and fear.  My laser-focus required that I would dismiss distractions — distractions like needless joy, connecting through relationships, seeing beautiful things unrelated to my personal desires, opening myself to other possibilities, etc.  Little by little, I started realizing that other like-minded, goal-driven people – people with perfectly planned-out lives seemed kinda miserable too.  They weren’t the exalted warriors Oprah had promised.

Conversely, I started observing the people that emanated peace and joy.  I noticed that they hadn’t all achieved some concrete list of goals. They were happy because they were less focused on themselves.  Instead of constantly monitoring and patching the holes inside themselves, they were busying themselves with “I love you’s” and sincere “How are you’s?” and oohing and ahhing at spring’s lavender skies.

What a countercultural epiphany this was!  The notion that you can find happiness by NOT putting yourself first!

Nashville’s great flood of 2010 was a testament to this.  Thousands of Nashville’s residents rolled up their sleeves and waded thru the murky, stinky and probably toxic basements of neighbors and strangers to help.  And I can tell you firsthand; you’ve never seen such a united front, such a cohesive sense of joy in the effort.  I’d never felt such a surge of accomplishment as I felt at the end of the day, when the homeowner managed to choke out the most heartfelt “thank you” that I’d ever been on the receiving end of.

That, I learned, was the taste of true happiness I’d been chasing. So, I’m learning day by day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of having goals and dreams – and taking care of your needs is a no-brainer. But it can become a prison when it starts blocking your view of the sunset and filtering out love, compassion and spontaneity.  The steps to finding true happiness might just mean crumpling up the list and stepping outside our own front door.