When I was 23 I joined the Marine Corps. Since most people join the Marines straight out of high school, at either 17 or 18, I seemed pretty old to a lot of people. I had already had a full-time job, been to college, and I had been of drinking age for a couple years (this, especially, caused a lot of jealousy among my peers). I quickly adapted a different mentality than most. I felt entitled and above everyone else. I knew what the real world was like, and I hated being treated like a child.
After serving for about six months, I met Tony, another 23 year old newbie Marine. He quickly became one of the best friends I’ll ever have through commiseration and alcohol-fueled weekend parties. We joined the Marine Corps out of necessity. Before we joined, we were kinda lazy and in not so great of shape physically. Our peers would effortlessly trounce us at anything that required physical effort. This made group physical training hard as hell.
Our peers and leaders could run circles around us, and it sucked. We were never overtly negative about our experiences, but we weren’t happy about them either. How could you be when you finish a run (with a hundred other people) in dead-last?
The Marine Corps isn’t all running and shooting though. Every so often we’d have classroom training where we would be instructed on anything from personal finances to recognizing early warning signs of potential suicide. One particular training that we attended was based around emotions. Judging by the topic alone, we thought it would be lame. And we were right for the most part. The one thing we took away from it was the expression “You need to have PMA, all day” — PMA referring to Positive Mental Attitude — which our instructor repeated probably 50 times.
He explained that being positive was a choice — that you could actually create your own happiness simply by thinking that you’re happy.
It all seemed pretty fluffy, so we started making jokes about it. We’d go on runs, to the field, or on training exercises, where life would typically be hellish, always saying “PMA all day!” But, instead of just being empty words, they started to have an effect. Our runs got better, our field exercises became fun.
In the military there are a lot of early mornings. It isn’t unheard of to have a company formation run start at 5 in the morning. Most people dreaded waking up that early, and they’d show up groggy or pissed off. Many of these people were peers or subordinates and they blatantly hated what they were being forced to do.
So we started saying “don’t hate it, just love it”. Some people would say that it isn’t that simple. But, it is. If you’re a chemically-balanced human being of able body and mind, you have the ability to change your attitude in any direction you want, at any time. You can dread things while other people are being happy — that’s a choice. You can force a smile, and contemplate the beauty of the world, during hard times — that’s a choice.
You can be happy when it rains, snows, storms, when you’re poor, when you go over your budget, when life doesn’t go exactly as planned, when George R.R. Martin kills your favorite character, or when it’s too hot or cold. Imagine the fact that for everything you hate, there’s somebody who loves it. You hate running? Well, millions of people love running. You hate ballet? Well, some people base their entire lives around it.
What this means is that perception is based on stimulus and response. Here’s a personal example: When I’m out driving my car and somebody cuts me off (stimulus), I typically respond by slowing down to give the other driver room (response). Obviously it doesn’t make me very happy when this happens, especially when I have my wife and kids in the car. But I don’t go flying off the handle. I don’t try to catch up to the driver, flip them off, then try to cut them off. This is a typical response, and it’s a choice.
Stephen R. Covey, author of the incredibly powerful, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, called this ability to choose a response to a stimulus “response-able”. Your actions don’t have to be predetermined by the choices that you’ve made in the past, your genetics, or the weather.
This doesn’t mean that you need to be in a great mood all the time. Grieving is necessary when you’re dealing with loss. It’s alright to miss people and to cry when you’re upset. But it doesn’t make sense to choose unhappiness every time you go to work.
If you hate your job, take a few minutes to reflect on whether you really hate the job or if you’re choosing unhappiness. Look around you. Do other people like working there? Do you have the power to fix the issues that would make you happy? Are the problems real, or are you trying to find reasons to hate what you’re doing? If you actually hate it, quit. Find a new job. If you’ve just been tainted, try choosing happiness and see if it makes a difference.
How to choose happiness (creating a habit)
The way you feel when you’re placed in a certain situation is a perfect analogy for stimulus and response — your feelings being the response and the situation being the stimulus. Your brain has been creating pathways throughout your entire life between stimulus and response. Responses eventually start to happen unintentionally and without our knowledge. This is how a habit is formed.
Once a habit is formed, it’s permanent. Fortunately, we can change how we respond to the stimulus that causes our habitual reaction. And here’s how to do it:
1. Recognize the signs that we’re about to start feeling unhappy. It may be a negative thought about a co-worker. It may be the sound of someone you don’t like’s voice. Whatever it is, hone down on it and understand how you feel at that exact moment.
2. Once the warning sign has been recognized the flood gates will open and your negative feelings, your aloofness, your disinterest will start to rush through you. The reaction that this caused is your brain’s way of fulfilling the habit loop and satiating it’s craving. It’s key to remember this transition.
You know your trigger and what consequence it has. Now you’re ready to do something about it.
3. After you’ve been triggered, take a few seconds to respond. In this time you should focus on maintaining happiness. If you have to, choose a phrase to remind yourself that you can choose to be happy. Ours was “don’t hate it, just love it”. We used it as a joke when things got hard, but it had a real life impact and changed our minds for the better.
4. Respond to the stimulus with a clear head, with determined happiness and conviction. Even if you’re lying to yourself about being truly happy, happiness will come once your habit loop has been successfully altered.
5. Practice this concept repeatedly. It probably won’t work perfectly from the first time you try it, but with repeated attempts and clear recognition of your triggers, you can beat any addiction — even the addiction of unhappiness.
6. If this doesn’t work, remove yourself from any situation that causes you to feel unhappy. Your job, your relationship, your neighborhood, whatever. There is too much happiness in the world to live without it in the short span of life that we have on this planet.
This method works on habits of all types. It’s worked to help me quit biting my nails, stop drinking soda and eating french fries, it helps me stay on track while dieting, and it’s helped turn exercising from a chore to a must-do. So, put on your best smile and get ready to face the world as a happier person.
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