Alchemy Today I

Finding Happiness in Life

Art Kunkin

Photo Credit: everywoman.com

Finding Happiness In Life, by John Izzo, is based on the highly praised public television series that he hosted called, “The Five Things You Must Discover Before You Die.”  To gather data for the book, Izzo sent out 5,000 inquiries asking to be put into contact with anyone the recipients knew who seemed to them was totally happy.  Friends and relatives submitted 500 names and Izzo managed to interview almost 250 of these people, aged 60 to 101, about what they thought had made their lives happy and fulfilled.

When published, the book’s title was changed slightly from the title of the TV series to The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die.  The author explains that he chose to introduce the word “Secrets” into the title of the book, not because the five principles of life that he analyzes are really unknown to most people, but because so very few people seem to live their lives as if these simple Secrets were actually true about the 3-D Existence that we perceive as reality.

Izzo found, however, that just knowing the five secrets was not sufficient.  It is the application of the Wisdom revealed in the “Secrets.”  We all know things that we don’t put into practice: exercise is good for us, eating a balanced diet can lead to good health, smoking is bad for our health, and relationships matter more than things, and so forth.  Yet many of us live in opposition to the “wisdom” we already have.

What is remarkable about this book is not simply that so many older people were interviewed about their lives, although that in itself is unusual because we live in such a youth-oriented culture, one that assumes that what is new and current is of most value (whether a laptop, a car or a person).   If we are young or middle-aged, why seek older people to discover the secrets?  Among the many reasons for the uniqueness of this book is that these happy people were identified by others, usually by friends or relatives much younger than they, as people who had found happiness, purpose and meaning in life.

At the beginning of the book, Izzo makes clear that he has two premises.  The first is that human life consists of a limited and undefined amount of time – it might be 100 years, it might be 30.  The second is that in that undefined amount of time we have an almost unlimited number of choices of what to focus on and put our energy into.  “When we are born there is no owner’s manual provided, and the clock begins ticking the moment we arrive.”

Following is a list of questions that Izzo asked the elders whom he interviewed.  He presents them in the hope that this might be the beginning of a larger conversation in which each of us seeks the wisdom of others.  Whether you get to ask these questions of others or not, I suggest you might find it very useful to ask these questions of yourself as well.

1. Pretend you are at a dinner party and everyone is sitting in a circle. The host invites each person to take just a few minutes to describe the life he or she has lived. If you were at the party and you wanted people to know as much about your life as possible in those few minutes, what would you say? Describe the life you have lived thus far.

2: What has brought you the greatest sense of meaning and purpose in life? Why does it matter that you were alive?

3. What has brought you or brings you the most happiness in life, the greatest joy moment to moment?

4. Tell me about a few of the major “crossroads’ moments in your life, times when you went in one direction or another and it made a large difference in terms of how your life turned out.

5. What is the best advice you ever got from someone else about life? Did you take that advice? How have you used it during your life?

6. What do you wish you had learned sooner? If you could go back to when you were a young adult and have a conversation with yourself, and you knew you would listen, what would you tell that younger person about life?

7. What is the role that spirituality and religion has played in your life?

8. What is the greatest fear at the end of life?

9. Now that you are older, how do you feel about your mortality, about death?  Not death in the abstract but your own death? Are you afraid of dying?

10. Complete this sentence: I wish I had…

11. Now that you have lived most of your life, about what are you certain or almost certain matters a great deal if a person wants to find happiness and live a fulfilling life?

12. Now that you have lived most of your life, about what are you certain or almost certain does not matter very much in finding a happy life? What do you wish you had paid less attention to?

13. If you could give only one sentence of advice to those younger than you on finding a happy and meaningful life, what one sentence would you pass on?

An interesting set of questions, indeed.  Were you to make note of your answers, you might surprise yourself to discover how much happiness you actually have in your life, or in answering them it just might lead you to recognize what you could do to live a happier life.

The Five Secrets

From the 250 elders who had been identified by family and friends as happy, well-adjusted people, Izzo and his team were able to distill and formulate them from their answers the basics of the “Five Secrets.” While everyone interviewed used their own personal language, the 5 Secrets boiled down to these ideas:

1)  BE TRUE TO YOURSELF – When you are faced with choices about education, career, residence, relationships, etc., don’t be pushed into decisions by other people or circumstances, including lack of money.  Ask: Am I following my heart?  Is my life focused on the things that really matter to me?  Am I being the person I want to be in the world?  Have I found my destiny?  Do I need a Destiny?

2)  I WILL NOT REGRET   What is the one thing that, at the end of my life, I will not regret?  Are there other things that you do not regret?  A life of leaving no regrets means risking more, sometimes to the point of seeming idiocy.  Turn away from fear and choose the path that makes the best story.

3)  BECOME LOVE – Embrace a life of Love, in which, above all, you Love YOURSELF!  Love is a choice, make it a priority.  See all beings as worthy of Love, and give yours freely to all.  Do good if you can but always – do no harm.  Ask yourself, “Did I make room for family, friends, and my relationships, and was I a loving person today/this week/this year?  Did I allow “things” to be more important than people?”

4)  LIVE THE MOMENT– Life is short, so seize the day.  “Be Here Now.”  It is called the Present because every moment is a Gift.  You can choose to be fully present in every moment.  Are you living today as if I would be seeing my last sunset?  The present moment IS the only moment and, therefore, the only moment in which you may act.

5)  GIVE MORE THAN YOU TAKE – Choose to knowingly make a difference in people’s lives; practice loving kindness, selfless service, open-hearted generosity, and compassion in all you do.   Did you make the world a better place this week in some respect?  What random act of kindness did I perform lately?  Will your funeral be ten minutes or ten hours long?

In a concluding chapter, those interviewed were asked to share in their own words their secret to a fulfilling and happy life in one sentence or less.  Here are some of their interesting responses, some of them obviously longer than one sentence. As the author commented, “Putting a lifetime in one sentence isn’t easy.”

“There are ten-minute funeral lines and ten-hour funeral lines. Live your
life so that when you die people will want to stay and tell stories about the
kind of life you lived and how you touched them.”
–Ken Krambeer, town barber, 64.

 “If you are unhappy, get busy doing something for someone else. If you
concentrate on yourself you will be unhappy, but if your focus on helping
others you will find happiness. Happiness comes from serving and loving.
– Juana Bordas, author, 64

“Find something you love doing and make it your career.” –Paul Hersey,
author, 76.

 “Learn to love people because if you do it will carry you to all kinds of place
– see the good in other people always.” –John Boyd, painter, almost 90.

“Eat healthy, be physically active, invest your energy in making wherever you
are a more just and happy community. –William Gorden, professor of
communication, activist, 77. 

“Learn to step out of the boat more.” – Don, 78

“Get an education, find out who you are, where you came from and where you
want to do, and don’t forget who you are.  –Ralph Dick, native chief, 66.

“Listen to the voices inside of you, they will tell you what is right and what is
wrong, they will bring you happiness and peace; if you don’t listen to them,
they can create anxiety, discontentment and unhappiness. –Bert Wilson, 63

“Be kind to yourself and to others; you can’t go wrong that way.”  –Mary, 87

“Have as much fun, joy and pleasure as you can while causing no harm to others.”
–Lee Pulos, psychologist, 78

“When I was in school I said to my woodwork teacher that what I was working
on was ‘good enough,’ and he told me that only perfect is good enough and good
enough is not perfect.”  –Frank, 82

This book has had a very great impact on me and perhaps it will be so for you too.  It’s available on the internet at Amazon Books for only one penny plus shipping.