Happy though life is crappy

The stomach churning realisation that after my back taxes are all paid I will probably be destitute is boring a big hole in my happiness. Not only destitute but possibly thousands of dollars in debt, this time without a house to sell. The combination of ill health and the recession have hit me hard. Had I sold my house a year earlier before house prices crashed I would have got another $100K for it, and have no financial worries at all. I’d even be able to buy a modest house in my new home town. But that was then and then is over, so there’s no point thinking about it.

My concern now is how to stay happy despite the crap in my life. I keep reminding myself of one of the things I’ve learned in my decades of transforming depression into happiness:

Though life may be crappy, I can still be happy

There was a time when I believed my mood was controlled by my circumstances. If I’d had a good day and things were going well, I should be happy, and vice versa. I even added up the score of good things versus bad each day so I could know what mood I should be in. And when I fell below my high standards, boy did I punish myself with depression. Then I discovered cognitive therapy. One of the ideas that had the biggest impact on me was from the philospher Epictetus:

What disturbs people's minds is not events but their judgments on events.

To me this meant that if I chose a certain way of thinking about things I could be happy even when things were crappy. It has been a long-term mission to learn how to think differently when crap happens, but by and large I’ve managed to do so. It’s had a huge impact on my mood – for the better! So I remind myself of this in order that even though I may lose all my money, I can avoid losing what is even more precious to me – my happiness.