If You Want to Be Happy, Live According to Your Values

Values are what give our lives meaning, purpose and joy.

They include things like relationships, career, service to others, health, leisure, etc. Each of us has our own set of values that make our lives worth living – and these may change over time. But when we’re too preoccupied with avoiding pain to live a values-directed life, we often sink into depression, burnout or apathy because we’re not doing the things that make us happy.

Values are not things you can “achieve” and be done with. Instead, they’re directions that we constantly move towards by setting and reaching goals that are in line with them.

For example, if your value is relationships, then calling a friend might be a goal that helps move you in that direction. But, if you never called a friend again, then it won’t be long before you felt disconnected and unfulfilled.

So, if a value is like one of the cardinal directions (i.e., west), and a goal in line with that value is a specific destination (i.e., Vancouver), then our emotions are the compass. Emotions give us critical information about whether we are moving in the right direction.

When we feel “positive” emotions like joy or love, it means we are in contact with our values, and when we experience “negative” emotions like anxiety, anger or sadness, it means that your values are out of reach or that something is threatening to get in the way.

With all the pain and suffering happening in the world, it can be tempting to turn away and numb ourselves from the pain – and, in the short term, we can do this. Much like the aperture of a camera that opens in a dark environment to let enough light in to take a picture, and closes when it’s bright out so that the picture doesn’t get “washed out,” our emotions work in a similar way.

When we’re overwhelmed by difficult emotion, we can “close the aperture” by engaging in any distraction that takes us further away from our present experience. This could mean anything from watching videos and scrolling mindlessly through social media, two options that have the potential to be more clearly problematic, like using alcohol or drugs. While, in and of themselves, any of these activities done in moderation can be a normal and healthy part of your lifestyle, when done in excess and in order to avoid your pain, they can cause significant problems.

Sometimes, we need to turn down the volume on our emotions in order to get through an emergency situation that requires urgent attention and response, or when we need to do damage control.

For example, it might be the healthiest choice to distract ourselves when we’re trying to prevent ourselves from making a situation much worse, like when we have urges to hurt ourselves or others, or to otherwise act on your emotions in a way that our better senses know will cause significant problems. But many of us use this strategy to avoid day-to-day discomfort without addressing what caused the painful emotion in the first place. In doing so, we end up reinforcing the painful emotion so that it’s even stronger the next time it’s triggered.

It’s understandable that we do this. After all, we’re hardwired to avoid pain, and sometimes we need to pick our battles. But our emotions aren’t just random noise. They’re important signals, designed to urge you to respond to adaptive problems. So, avoidance is like putting earplugs in to drown out the sound of a fire alarm.

Maybe you could argue that it’s helpful while you collect your loved ones and escort them out of the house, but if you don’t eventually put out the fire or escape to safety, then you’ll be facing some serious trouble.

What makes things worse is that these avoidance strategies can provide instant relief, while the more sustainable approaches that improve your health and wellbeing in the long run may feel worse before they feel better. So, once we start down the path of instant relief, it’s easy to get into the habit of doing these behaviours again and again, without ever learning another way to deal with them, or even being aware that we are doing them in the first place.

A lack of pain is not happiness
Society also gives us messages that happiness is the absence of pain, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.

While we can temporarily open and close that aperture, we don’t have the ability to take in the joy, love and all the emotions that we like, without also experiencing the pain. If we want all of the “positive emotions” we have to take the pain along with it.

So instead of asking yourself how to eliminate your pain, try asking yourself: What are you willing to suffer for?

If you’re one of the front line workers providing essential services that keep the rest of us safe, then first take a moment to pat yourself on the back and appreciate what you’ve done. While the rest of us may never fully understand what you’ve endured for our benefit, your positive impact is undeniable. If service to others is a value that is important to you, then the present circumstances, however tragic, are an unprecedented opportunity to take a brave leap towards a life worth living.

When you’re overwhelmed by a crisis situation, it’s ok to “close the aperture” by engaging in mindless distractions from time to time, but don’t forget to open it back up again when the emergency has passed, by mindfully connecting to your emotions in the present moment. If you aren’t eventually willing to make space for whatever pain or discomfort shows up, then you won’t be able to connect to the feeling of purpose that will carry you through this difficult time. When you do, make sure you seek support, take time for self-care, and address that needs that are easy to neglect in these strange times.