The 2 Keys to Happiness

We're going in a different direction just for today on this financial blog. As with anything you ever read here, take what you find useful and leave the rest.

In The White Coat Investor community, we often talk about wellness, beating burnout, and using our money to make ourselves and other people happier. In that vein, I thought it might be useful to share some of the wisdom I've picked up in my first half-century of life. By the time you read this, I'll be 49 and rapidly closing in on 50. I've spent a lot of time in school, I've lived on four continents, I've worked 80 hours a week, I've served in the military, and I've enjoyed what is essentially a very early retirement (I have averaged < 12 hours a week practicing medicine for the last five years or so, and 90% of the “work” I do at WCI can't really be called work when I love it so much).

I have good health, plenty of money, and more fame and power than I'm really interested in having. I've done all the things that people say they would do if they didn't have to work—extensive travel, pursuit of hobbies, time with family, etc. Sometimes I'm still not happy, but that's only because I have temporarily forgotten one of the two keys to happiness. When I remember them, I'm happy again. Let me share them with you.

#1 Be Other-Centered

I sometimes reflect on the two years I spent as a church missionary. This wasn't working in a third-world clinic or some other type of foreign humanitarian service; it was a proselytizing mission. I was trying to convert souls to Christ. For those unfamiliar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, young people often go on these proselyting missions for 18-24 months. At their own expense, they dedicate their entire life from 6:30 am to 10:30 pm to this missionary work, 6 1/2 days a week. The other half-day is mostly filled with a trip to the grocery store, doing laundry, and writing two letters, one to the “president” of that particular mission and the other to your parents. Your apartment and transportation (if not just walking or biking) are paid out of mission funds, and then you are given something like $300 a month (half that in my day) to live on. You're essentially a monk. You're not pursuing your own education, your own financial stability, or even your own pleasure for a couple of years. You buy nothing but absolute necessities like groceries. I'd fall into bed every night completely exhausted and awake the next morning ready to do it all again. I don't think I've ever been so happy. Why? Because I was 100% focused, over 100 hours a week, on other people.

I was recently speaking with my oldest daughter, who is currently serving one of these missions very successfully. I reflected that every admirable quality and many of the useful skills I have in life were either developed or dramatically improved as a missionary, including:

• Selflessness
• Service
• Hard work
• Frugality
• Discipline
• Spirituality
• Writing ability
• Public speaking ability
• Teaching skills
• Confidence
• Spanish
• Thick skin (I'm pretty hard to offend compared to most)
• Physical fitness
• Tolerance for suffering
• Ability to listen
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Compassion
• Tolerance

The person I was when I returned was dramatically more admirable than the person I was when I left. Perhaps the most important lesson I learned, however, is counterintuitive. The more you focus on being happy, the less happy you are likely to be. Therapists have noticed this. It turns out that sitting for an hour a week with a therapist talking and thinking about nothing but yourself, your failings, and your own challenges is not necessarily therapeutic.

A past leader of our church, Gordon Hinckley, was early in his own mission way back in 1933. He was discouraged by health challenges, a foreign culture, rejection, and a general feeling of uselessness. He wrote about this to his father saying that he was wasting his time and his father's money and that he might as well go home. His father's reply showed up a couple of weeks later:

“Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.”

After reflection and prayer, Hinckley changed his attitude and resolved to follow his father's advice. Decades later he said, “Everything good that has happened to me since then I can trace back to the decision I made that day.”

Actor Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office) gave the commencement speech this year at a local university. Among other pearls of wisdom, he told the graduates that rather than becoming self-centered, they should become “other-centered.” Serving others, even in small ways, will kindle more happiness than turning to self-indulgent vices like shopping, partying, or gaming. He said:

“Basically, everything the world is telling you about finding joy is wrong. Buying stuff, gaining social status, looking sexy, seeking distraction, partying, and doing all the stuff the cool kids are doing on Instagram and on TV ads and in music videos actually takes us further away from bliss. Don’t buy it for a second . . . I implore you to walk out of this ceremony with a decision for this next chapter of your lives to move toward being other-centered instead of self-centered.”

If you want to be happy, quit looking for happiness. Look for purpose instead. Try to figure out how you can help others. Sure, take the time to relax, smell the flowers, and do lots of fun things. But don't expect that to be the source of never-ending happiness in your life. If you find yourself feeling unhappy, go find someone else to make happy and you'll likely find that you become happy in the process.

More information here:

The Happiness Index: Mine Required My Own Version of Retirement

Leaving Dentistry and Finding Happiness

#2 Lower Your Expectations

The source of a great deal of unhappiness in our lives is simply that our expectations are way too high. It's like being on a plane. People get upset that the WiFi on the plane is down, forgetting that they're in a chair, flying through the sky at 500 mph. Instead of being grateful that we don't have to drive for four days or take a boat for a week, we complain about turbulence and the guy in front of us with the stinky feet. Lower your expectations, and you'll be happier.

I'm married to the best person I know. Seriously, Katie is an incredible person. Talented, compassionate, and intelligent, and I'm madly attracted to her. Is she perfect? Of course not, and I'm sure if I really thought about it, I could tell you about all the ways in which she is not. But will that make me happier to do so? No way. As minister Jenkin Lloyd Jones once said,

“Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.”

Lower your expectations, and you'll be happier. I do it all the time for patients in the emergency department, and it works.

“This workup is probably going to take about four hours, and although we might not be able to come up with a diagnosis for your pelvic pain, we'll treat your pain in the safest way possible and make sure whatever is causing it will not kill you.”

With that introduction, they're thrilled to get out of there in two hours with a negative workup, a shot of Toradol, and a referral to GYN. Lower your own expectations of what you're going to get out of life and then be pleasantly surprised.

You deserve to be happy. Try to set up your ideal life with the proper amount of purposeful work, relaxation, and fun. Spend your money preferentially on that which brings you happiness. But if you want to be truly happy long-term, focus on others and lower your expectations.

What do you think? What would you say in a commencement speech to help graduates find happiness in their lives? Why is it that focusing too much on our own happiness can make us so unhappy?