co-challengers

Photo by Marcus Wöckel: Pexels

Some years ago, Shawn Achor, a Harvard professor, went to Africa to address small
schoolchildren. To make the interaction lively, he humorously asked them, ‘How many of you
like schoolwork?’ He expected no one to raise their hands, as his experience (and most of ours)
was that children in general do not like schoolwork.


To his astonishment, many of them raised their hands.


Puzzled, he asked them why they felt so. They told him that schoolwork was an opportunity
available to them that was not available to their parents. They felt privileged to do schoolwork.
This astonishing insight into gratitude is covered nicely in his book, ‘The Happiness Advantage.’


Therefore, the way we view something that we do greatly influences the emotions we associate
with it. In the book ‘Atomic Habits’, James Clear suggests that we replace ‘I have to do’ with ‘I
get to do’ when we talk. This changes our perception towards the action itself. We view the
actions as opportunities instead of burdens, similar to how the school children in Africa did.


I thought of some ways in which we can apply this learning. ‘I have to go to the office tomorrow’
can be replaced with ‘I get to make my customers happy tomorrow’. ‘I have to clean my room’
can be replaced with ‘I get to make my room beautiful, which will enable me to live more
comfortably’. These statements put us in a position of empowerment. We are likely to be
happier doing the tasks.


Another aspect is that we have many things to be grateful for, that we overlook. Ralph Linton, an
American anthropologist, nailed it when he mentioned ‘The last thing that a fish would notice is
water’. How true! This is also applicable to humans.


We are irritated with air pollution. How often are we happy or even notice when the air is clean
and healthy for us to breathe? We complain about the quality of the food we eat. Yet, our
ancestors, thousands of years ago, were not even sure when their next meal would be, because
that depended on the food available in the forests and whether they would be able to obtain
them.


This is not to say that our worries are invalid. We all face difficulties unique to our lives and it is
completely understandable that we worry. The intent is not to gloss over our worries. Instead, it
is a reminder that we sometimes forget to acknowledge the good in our lives and focus too
much on the bad.


So, how can we make it better for ourselves?

An interesting exercise, suggested by Shawn Achor, the same Harvard professor mentioned
above, is to write three things that we are grateful for, every day. He suggests that this will help
us scan the positives around us more effectively. I use this method in Google Docs instead of
writing on paper (to reduce paper consumption for eco-friendly reasons) and it has worked
wonders for me. The more I do the exercise, the easier it becomes. He has an interesting TED
talk on happiness which can be found in this link.


I hope this article helps you in some way in becoming happier. In the spirit of gratitude, I am also
grateful to all of you who regularly read these articles and motivate me. You make me happier.


About the author: Anirudh loves meeting new people and reading about Psychology, Nature and
Self-Help.
His other articles can be found here.

4 Responses

  1. Such a beautiful way of using our own minds to motivate ourselves by looking at things as opportunities instead of as problems. So beautifully written Anirudh !! As always 👌🏻👌🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

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