Use These 3 Powerful Perspective Shifts to Reclaim Your Happiness Today

Stop the incessant, costly search for something new

There are two ways to find happiness:

1. You find something novel that blows your mind away.
2. You find happiness in something you already have.

But before we discuss this notion in greater depth, let’s first identify our predicament:

We have become too fickle as a society. It teaches us to crave the new and cultivate disdain for the old.

If we’re not happy with the partner we have, Mr. or Mrs. Right might be just a swipe away on Tinder. If we’re not satisfied with a thing we have, Amazon gives us a 30-day guarantee, no questions asked.

The friction associated with change is systematically engineered away from every area of our lives. The result is that we find it increasingly difficult to commit.

This shows on how we interact with the world: attentional spans are on the decline. Websites that load for too long see gargantuan bounce rates. Movie shots are shorter and shorter, not because of the cinematic experience, but because movies now have to out-compete all the other stuff that grabs our attention.

The availability of novel opportunities, coupled with our fickle nature, makes us superficial. We go broad instead of going deep. We try many things and abandon them 5 minutes later because we don’t like them.

We are perpetually searching and unceasingly dissatisfied.

Even if we find something or someone new, this fixes things only for only a bit. Before we know it, the novel element in our lives becomes drab and boring (keyword: hedonic adaptation).

Here’s where we circle back to the notion from the beginning.

Option one — finding something new — is sexy and enticing, and so we search for it, hoping we’ll strike gold. But search often costs us dearly, because finding something worthwhile is hard, or because even if we do, we adapt to it quickly.

Option two — learning to love what we have — is a viable road to happiness, but it’s often overshadowed by option one.

Let’s illustrate the struggle with a story.

In the past weeks, I’ve struggled not to buy a new phone. I wanted a new phone, I could afford a new phone, but I didn’t need one. That many friends have gotten a new phone isn’t a ticket to get one. That I want it is not a valid reason either. Yet the thoughts lingered: if he did it, why don’t you? It’s okay. It’s normal. You know you want it. The little devil whispered his schemes right into my ear. And I struggled while researching what phone I’d love to buy.

Do I need a warranty for my screen? Hmmm…

Why Is It So Hard to Resist the Novel?

Sure, it’s exciting and all. But I think that’s only one part of the story.

The other part?

Learning to love what we have is unsexy.

The prospects of buying a new phone have made me old one look like a piece of trash. Before the idea invaded my headspace, though, my old phone was okay. It got the job done. Now? A part of me prays I drop it so I have an excuse to buy a new one.

Put another way, we systematically brainwash ourselves to hate the old so that we feel justified in replacing it.

And it’s not just our phones we find old and drab. It’s the people around us, too. It’s the activities we do and hobbies we loved just days ago. And when the novelty fades, the drudgery begins: you now have to work for keep the relationship healthy. You must find other ways of doing things so you still find it interesting.

But work? Yuck. Why should I work if I can get something new so easily?

The costs of that decision are manifold:

1. You forgo the layers of depth that you still haven’t discovered (speaking about relationships)
2. You discard something that still fulfills its function (speaking about things).
3. The worst of all, you teach yourself to bail whenever the first struggle hits.

But let’s talk about Indian marriages now to lighten up the mood, shall we?

In many parts of the world, such as India, arranged marriage is still a thing. Assuming our western perspective, we might surmise that we’d rather die — Romeo and Juliet style — than to be forced to marry a person we didn’t choose.

Yet the happiness ratings tell a different story: In one study, there was no difference between arranged and free-choice marriage. In the second study, the happiness in arranged marriage increased throughout the years (as opposed to the decline in free-choice marriages). One can only speculate as to why.

I think arranged marriage, usually found in eastern societies, fosters commitment. The two people, thrown together like two random pieces of groceries in a bag, have to learn to love one another.

In western societies, where free choice marriage is common, commitment plays a secondary part after a person’s “pursuit of happiness”. This pursuit takes its toll: whenever we hit the iceberg on our relationship voyage, the western free choice couple jumps the ship. The eastern couple starts patching up the holes.

Sometimes, happiness is learning to love what we have and resisting the siren’s call of the novelty.

So how can you go about it?

1. Consciously limit your choices, become a satisficer

Herbert A. Simon, back in the 1950s, identified two kinds of people: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers look for the best option in all the options. Satisficers look for the best option in a limited pool of options.

As a maximizer, you are in a constant state of fretting over your past choices: did you really make the right decision? What if you missed something — some fundamental thing? Like a background program that keeps the PC awake, being a maximizer means you’re always on the lookout for something new and better. But the constant search is tiring and the resulting state isn’t happiness, but fear and worry.

As a satisficer, you know the value of “good enough”. You see how, all things considered, it is often better to settle (and learn to love the old) than to maximize and look for “the best”. Why? Because you avoid the incessant (and often unsuccessful) search. And because good enough gives you peace of mind. You know you’ve made the best choice given the options you had.

Being a satisficer teaches you to accept your lot and understand that, given your options, you’ve made the best choice.

2. FOCUS — Follow One Course Until Successful

Recently, I’ve been reading the old-time classic from Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad. FOCUS, as Kiyosaki sees it, is relevant for our discussion because it implies a certain level of doggedness before you give up. Following one course until successful means you must make it work no matter what. There’s no escape. In such constrained conditions, you can fully unleash your creativity.

Only if you follow one course until successful can you claim you’ve given something or someone a fair shot.

3. Learn to Look For The Flipside

Breaking your leg is bad, but what if you meet the love of your love in the hospital? Losing all your money is bad, but what if it makes you understand that money isn’t what you want? The point is, we can’t say with certainty that whatever happens to us good or bad. Only the future will tell how things pan out.

What we often do in the circumstances that make us look for something new is to find holes in whatever we have. We see our partners through the lens of deficiency. We see the things we’d like to replace as inadequate. And while that might be the case, it’s often just our mind telling us so because it needs to convince us that the old option is bad and the new one is good. What lunatic changes something that works, after all? But that’s often what we do because we forget to look at the flipside. We brainwash ourselves into believing that something or someone needs to change because the alternative — that we need to change — is much harder to swallow.

To remedy that, make it a habit to find something positive in everything that happens to you. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. What you often need is a change in perspective, not a change of something or someone.

Parting Thoughts

Just to be clear, this isn’t a case for sticking to dysfunctional relationships or staying in a dead-end job (or with a phone that barely functions). Often, novelty is a necessary component of finding happiness.

Yet novelty isn’t the only thing that leads to happiness. Learning to love what we have — being content with our partners and our 3-year-old phones — is often the change in perspective that also makes us happy, albeit not in the head-over-heels fashion.

Whenever you feel you want to quit, change, or otherwise discard the old ask yourself: is it because you’ve outgrown it? Or is it rather because the promise of novelty got the better of you?

If the pursuit has proven ineffective, over and over again, maybe learning to love the old is something to consider. Sure, the old isn’t as sexy as the new, but that’s perhaps just the surface. The sexiness of the old unfolds when you get to know it better.

Give it a shot, the results might surprise you.