Day 30: Being happy is something you have to learn (Harrison Ford)

I have always been a good learner, at least, as an adult.  Becoming a first-rate learner was effortless after I became a good, practiced teacher. It seems that teachers have the key to learning and we secretly pass it along to our students and others on a person-by-person basis or classroom-by-classroom basis.

I’m not sure when I gained the keys to the kingdom of learning but at some point I did.  Learning is, simply put, the obverse of teaching and developing lesson plans, scheduling for the unique learning needs of my students, and building quality lessons, taught me most of what I needed to know about learning; however, I did not realize how this learning application could be useful in other aspects of my life.

Taking the mental leap and realizing that happiness requires learning was a subtler process in my mind.  Is it really that simple?  Is happiness just another process to learn and is it clearly within our control?

It seems that after 30 days of writing this blog, I have learned a number of important concepts and I will put my teacher hat on to teach these to you.

• Happiness requires a consciousness and awareness by the individual; beauty is in the eye of the beholder…
• Everyone can learn to be happy; just as everyone is capable of learning (really everyone is capable of learning, this is not just a platitude…)
• Happiness requires a sorting of one’s life’s thoughts and emotions and a filing of negative aspects that are not in your control; letting go of the worthless emotions; strengthening the positive ones
• Happiness is an occasional measure that surfaces from time to time and can be extended or strengthened by simply recognizing it and enjoying it
• Happiness can be planned and developed
• Happiness can be shared but it is not a necessity
• Happiness can be learned

Let me more specific.  Learning is the process whereby you engrain some image or information in your brain so that recall is available and somewhat accurate. The importance of this science of learning is that learning is a “learned” concept itself; a shared wisdom, if you will.  Through science, we understand that your brain is like a series of file cabinets that are controlled by neurons that store the file cabinet information and make them accessible.  The best learning style, stores “like information in like file cabinets” making the information more accessible to its owner.  This is why teachers always start with a known concept before moving onto the unknown concept for their students.

What this boils down to is simply this:

Make a happiness file cabinet in your brain, something resembling a picture album.  If you consciously do this; storing future happiness thoughts will be easier and more easily accessible in the future.  Happiness is both a current moment and/or a remembered moment, you choose.

I keep a happiness file in my desk for days that aren’t so happy.  Now I have learned to have one in my head as well; it takes up less space... Be happy, learn to be happy…it works! ;)