A Key to Happiness — with an Update

A Key to Happiness

Herein, I share another installment of a series of life lessons that I have come across:

[I have an update to this article. I shared the key thesis of this article, that the key to happiness is gratitude, with a close relative. However, they had an interesting response. Their response was that the key to happiness . . . is helping others. I still think that gratitude is key, or at least a key. But, I think my relative may have had a point!]

A key to happiness is: gratitude.

I would like to share a story that much impressed me about the power of gratitude when it comes to one’s happiness. According to the story, a young woman on a religious pilgrimage saw a man that stood out. This man was very old and had a face lined like a walnut. But what was most remarkable about this man was how happy he seemed. He seemed to simply radiate joy.

So, the pilgrim struck up a conversation with the man. He said that he was a priest and almost 100 years old. She asked him about how it was that he looked so joyful. He replied something to the effect that, when he was a boy, he had noticed that people would often make themselves unhappy complaining about any little thing. And so, he had promised God to never complain about anything for the first 100 years of his life and to always be thankful for the gift of life. The pilgrim thanked him for sharing this with her, but she pointed out that he would soon reach the end of his promise. He replied that his promise had made him so happy that he would gladly make it again for another hundred years!

A few points or questions come to my mind thinking about this account:

#1. Do you really want to be happy? This story suggests a way to happiness through gratitude — but it sounds like extraordinarily hard work. Just think of the self-discipline it must take to never complain about anything and to always be thankful. Would we be willing to do the work it takes to achieve such happiness?

#2. This person was grateful not for material things but for life itself.

#3. This approach needs to be applied carefully when it comes to persons suffering persecution. If a person is actually being victimized by injustice, such person does right to complain and/or protest. But, it should be noted that there may can a difference between unproductive complaining . . . and productive protesting.

In conclusion, the secret, or at least one of the major keys, to happiness is gratitude.

This may lead to an additional question: how can one become more grateful? One might try playing the ‘no, it’s good game.’ This is a game based on the following story.

Once upon a time, there was a king who had a friend who was in the habit of saying “No, its good” to any bad thing. This habit could be annoying, but the king still liked his friend.

But, one day, the king was chopping some wood, and he slipped and chopped off the front part of his hand. The king howled with pain and said how awful it was. But, his friend said: “No, its good; you’re lucky you didn’t chop your whole hand off!”

That did it. The king was so mad that he ordered his friend to be thrown into the dungeon.

Some time later, the king was out hunting by himself, and he was captured by cannibals. Terrified, the king thought that he would be eaten alive. However, as fate would have it, these particular cannibals had a superstition that they were not permitted to eat a body missing any of its parts. So, when they examined the king and found that he was missing some of his hand — they let him go!

Back home, the king was, at first, very relieved. However, then the thought occurred to him: “Oh, my poor friend! He was right all along; losing part of my hand was good! And look how I treated him!”

So, the king immediately released his friend from the dungeon, explained what had happened, and apologized profusely. However, to the king’s surprise, the friend once again responded: “No, it’s good! If I hadn’t been in here, I would have been out there, hunting with you, and the cannibals would have got me! And, you they let go, but me they would have eaten!”

A couple lessons can be drawn from this story. One is that it may not be a good idea to say ‘no, its good’ to others when they face misfortunes. That may only make them more upset. However, it can make for an exercise in gratitude to find a reason to say ‘no, its good’ to YOURSELF when you encounter something that troubles you. I call this: playing the ‘no, its good’ game. For example, not long before this writing, I acquired new shoes that put a bloody sore on my ankle. But, I told myself ‘no, its good! It means you still have feet!’ And, that made me feel better about the situation. Moreover, I sometimes get headaches. I like to tell myself: ‘No, its good! It means you still have a head!’ So, I can attest from personal experience that performing exercises in gratitude can make a person feel better. However, I will add the caveat that the ‘No, its good!’ game had tended to give me a quick sarcastic thrill rather than the sort of saintly happiness that the priest seemed to enjoy.

However, my conclusion remains that a key to happiness . . . is gratitude.