Called “the happiest place on earth” in one survey (12th in another), immigrants to Costa Rica essentially live in a “Nature” special. Making many to envy our good fortune. So how could anyone be unhappy living here?

In the last column, we explored some answers to that question, and focused on the self-defeating mindsets that block happiness. Unrealistic expectations about what life “should” give us, for example, set us up for disappointment and unhappiness. And we basically make ourselves unhappy by OUR responses to the realities of existence.

Yes! It FEELS like the setback is the direct cause of unhappiness. But that leaves out a “step”: our attitudes about the difficulty will determine how badly we will feel about it. If we regard a sunny day as due us and see rain as the world “screwing us”, we not only suffer an unmet need but also a sense of personal injury. Feeling “I don’t matter” makes the rainy day worse and precludes looking for other sources of happiness.

Freeing ourselves of such attitudes opens us to other opportunities for happiness. We grow from a “I got screwed” attitude to an “OK…. How else can I meet my needs?” approach. And, thereby, improve our happiness prospects.

This “attitude adjustment” may be necessary, but it’s not always sufficient. We may also need some sense of where else to look for happiness.

Research points us in five important directions or P.E.R.M.A.s, an acronym that will help us remember the five general sources of happiness.

• Positive Emotions
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning or Purpose
• Accomplishments

In short, we might be unhappy in paradise because of our negative reactions to the ups and downs of life and because we left behind some or all of these sources of happiness in our former lives. Lost them and failed to replace them here in Costa Rica.

Here again, attitudes may prevent us from making the efforts needed to restore these happiness sources to our lives. If we think “the move to Costa Rica SHOULD GIVE me…”, we don’t even bother to look.

Positive Emotions.

It’s impossible to feel happy if we never feel good. Joy, gratitude, delight, wonder, love, and so on are essential parts of a happy life. If such feelings are missing from your life, you might want to consider where they’ve gone. What relationships, experiences, roles, activities provided these feelings in your past? Do you need to restore them to your current life?

And are you holding on to negative/happiness destroying feelings like anger, resentment, discouragement, defeat,regret, etc?? Yes! You may be justified in having such feelings. But do they really do you ANY GOOD? Letting go of a righteous anger does not say “What you did to me was OK”. Letting go frees YOU of living with the poison of persistent resentment, and improves YOUR emotional state and outlook. A source of happiness may be right in front of you, but you are unable to see it while blinded by anger.

Engagement

Remember how good you felt totally absorbed in some task, hobby, cause, interest, connection? When we’re “in the zone”, we’re doing something meaningful and exercising our core strengths. And this experience contributes to our overall sense of happiness. Where has such engagement gone? Where could you find more of it? What’s your “state of excellence” in the big picture?

Relationships.

Social relationships are not just a “nice part” of our lives. They’re essential to our well-being. Life is at its best when we are in deep and fulfilling relationships with others. We feel accepted, needed, understood, loved. And we feel great when we give that same treatment to others.
So, where do your relationships stand? Might improving them help you find/restore happiness?

“Ah!” you say, “But THEY need to change before I can have a good relationship with them.” Probably so. . And have you considered what changes YOU might make that could encourage them to make the changes that you need? What change do they need from YOU? Your changing could break the logjam and enable them to change!

Meaning Or Purpose

“Living large” is a key to our happiness. And you know I don’t mean a life of “bling”. We need to feel that our lives are part of something bigger than ourselves: a family, a cause, a religion, a social goal… Then we’re not just one more grain of sand on the beach of the cosmos. We belong and we’re needed by that beach!

Such meaning and purpose helps us to more easily endure the inevitable hardships of life. Many of us looked forward to retirement: “THEN, my life can begin. No more B.S, from the boss. I’M the boss now!!” Yet, that job may have given us more than a paycheck. It gave us a role and significance in an organization. And a chance to exercise our special strengths. Can any of those satisfactions be found in retirement? Do you need to develop an “Encore Career” to reclaim the positives of your former profession?

Accomplishments

Moving to Costa Rica was a huge accomplishment. Many dream, FEW act. You did.

Remember the satisfactions in the planning and preparing that move? The challenges met and the progress made, leading to your eventual success.? A local realtor says “Everyday is Sunday Here.” Forgetting that having nothing to do when you have nothing to do is deeply boring. “Sundays” that are EARNED are the best time off. And are a part of a plan for a happy life. Do you need to get “off the couch” and step up to some challenging goal??

Happiness: A Definition

So what is this thing called “happiness”? There are a lot of answers to that question. And the one that I find most enlightening, most useful, indicates that happiness is the innate emotional reward for living a good life, for thriving, for flourishing. It’s nature’s way of saying “You’re living well. You’re on the right track. Keep it up.”

Happiness is the highest good. It’s why we do everything lower down the scale. We get an education to have a better life, to better understand life, and to get a good job. We get that job to have security, comfort, accomplishment. And those things bring happiness: a feeling about our OVERALL life.

But we don’t seek happiness because it will bring us something else. It’s the end point of our efforts. We may seek riches to be happy. And we may ask, “Yeah, he’s rich. But is he happy?” But we don’t ask, “Yeah, he’s happy. But is he rich?” If we’re happy, we don’t need anything else. We’ve “arrived” at the “sweet spot” of OUR unique lives.

And don’t confuse happiness with temporary, high intensity positive emotions like joy-which come and go quickly. Happiness is not the giddy glee of school kids turned loose at recess. Although such moments joy and glee do contribute to the happiness we feel about our overall life.

It’s more of an enduring contentment, a feeling that “I’m spending my very limited existence in harmony with reality and in tune with my special strengths. I’m optimizing my time and efforts to live the best possible life for me based on MY values, needs, and special contributions to the world.”

So happiness is the complicated consequence of many choices, efforts, and ongoing struggles. No ONE move to ANYWHERE-no matter how awesome- could ever be enough to produce happiness.

Ask a teen “What kind of life do you want?” And the answer WILL be……”Oh! I JUST want to be happy!!” Then ask, “And how will you achieve happiness?” Their stunned reply: “You mean you have to WORK for it?? You mean happiness doesn’t just HAPPEN???”

Looking Ahead….

There’s much, much more to explore in each of the 5 P.E.R.M.A.s AND, you have been protesting, “BFD! This approach works for rainy days. What about for serious, severe, and persistent misery?” Next times.

Today’s “take homes”:

1. If you’re unhappy, ask yourself, ‘What am I expecting. And IS that realistic?” And when your expectations are unmet, what does that “say” about who you are? Does it make you FEEL like a “failure”, a “loser”, a “nobody”? Is that REALLY TRUE?

   Once you’ve “checked your attitude”, take a look at how you’re living, look at you daily activities. An adventurous person like you senses that it’s not just where we live, but HOW we live there. What we DO there.

2. Have you neglected to “pack” the P.E.R.M.A.s in the shipping container that brought your possessions here? Did you think, “Everyday will be Sunday, so I don’t need to work to be happy”?? Try looking for local versions of the five sources of happiness.

Again, I truly look forward to you comments, disagreements, questions, and ideas for future columns .

I’d be happy to hear your reactions-including disagreements- to these hard won insights on my road to happiness in Costa Rica. Also let me know about your ideas for future columns. I won’t be able to respond to individual inquiries. But I will include as many of your concerns as possible in upcoming columns.

You can contact me by email here.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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