Your Erroneous Zones by Dr Wayne W Dyer was the first book I read on the subject of positive psychology in 1978. It was in the university town of Carbondale, Southern Illinois, USA and was Dyer’s first book on the subject, with 100 million copies sold. I found it in my friend’s caravan, and that find initiated my interest. Paul and I lived in a caravan and we called it the “silver bomb.” However, they are generally called silver bullet, a sausage-shaped, silver aluminium Airstream trailer. The first Airstream, called the “Clipper” in 1936, was named after the first trans-Atlantic seaplane. During the Fall of 1978, almost three months, we lived in a 1950s version. Within the dull grey caravan was an air conditioner, my first experience of one and I named it a cool heater. Paul was amused by the term. It functioned very well for both of us except the toilet’s failing flushing system left one poking amidst the aluminium bowl’s contents. Paul, courageously sorted it on my behalf on many an occasion. He won an athletics’s scholarship, as did his older brother Gerry, to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. In a Derry Journal’s feature, a couple of years ago Paul reminded us of his talent, having won the Belfast City Marathon and then his home town marathon.
Carbondale, in Southern Illinois was originally a railroad town, but with the development of the university, it became known as the “Athens of Egypt.” Southern Illinois has long been referred to as Little Egypt. This nickname may be the result of the practices of early settlers from Northern Illinois who travelled to Southern Illinois to buy grain after a series of bad winters and droughts. These wagon train folks recognised the similarities between themselves and the ancient Israelites who went to Egypt to buy grain grown in the rich Nile Delta. Others have noted the similarity in shape between the mounds of the Native Americans who once lived throughout this area and the ancient pyramids of Egypt. Also, there is the existence of many towns with Egyptian names such as Carmi and Cairo.
There was always a briskness to Paul, not just his fitness but his attitude. I think he was always a positive soul, maybe from his mother, but he surely further developed it from his American peers. I first noticed it in our secondary school, he was “bumming,” what we called to bum, to think highly of oneself and let people know it. He wasn’t really, he was just confident. It turned out to be one of the reasons I liked Paul, after my initial distaste. Paul, too, observed my flâneur tendencies, an observer, rather than a participant. He was right! A character in J M Coetzee’s book, Youth, ponders whether Ezra Pound’s brisk attitude to life was his American upbringing.
I went apple picking in Carbondale as one way of picking up some extra cash while on holiday. I bought a second hand bike. Cycling under the university’s town jet-blue sky, through forests to get to the orchard and often sharing a cask of water with a crumpled fellow-apple-picker with a face like crinkled brown paper bag. I had to manoeuvre the pointy-ended ladder through the cobweb of branches and avoid the scores and scratches on my arms and face while ascending through the trees. I would grab the apples and drop them into my canvas bag, hung over my shoulder. To quench my thirst, I would look for one where the sun glinted off its rosy skin and then rubbed it against my bedraggled tee shirt to burnish a spot and take a huge bite. Then dropped it to join others that nature repelled on the orchard floor or I would toss it through the entanglement of branches, and watch how quickly its flight was interrupted, blocked by a branch, before falling to the ground. These one-bite apple snacks would keep me going for most of the day. Sometimes I would bring sandwiches for lunch but mostly I was up the ladder, grabbing at the crimson spheres.
“You’re on Earth, there’s no cure for that!” as Samuel Beckett declared. Going for a dérive, helps me! So how does one be happy and survive the experience of life? Since living in Carbondale, I have read hundreds of books and articles on the subject of Positive Psychology. It is impossible to summarise those readings but this is an attempt discuss what I found. So life gets us down and we have to pick ourselves up again, that is life on this earth, that’s a fact. It’s not the falling down, it’s the picking oneself up again. It’s not simply about being happy but surviving the hurdles that are present on our way, as Burton pointed out in 1620. We need to be resilient, adaptive and independent. Plato reminds us “I am ill”, one must learn to adapt to the world. It’s about trying to avoid anxiety, finding a strategy that suits the individual. Mental health issues is another issue, that I am not discussing. Resilience is the ability of an individual to face dynamic, real life problems, stresses, traumas and successfully navigate and overcome these challenges. It’s a skill. Just one of the tools to learn. It’s something that fluctuates and something you can tangibly develop rather than some vague trait only successful people possess. The world will always be challenging. “The fact we are alive at all is ironic”, states Patrick White, an Australian writer. The first message I got from Dyer’s book was to love thyself, an uncomfortable concept for an Irish Catholic boy but it doesn’t mean that selfish, narcissistic love but simply being comfortable with one’s self, one’s individuality and understand oneself. In other words, “Know Thyself.” Or in more arcane language, Quod sit, esse velit nihilque malit - who would be what he is, requiring nothing extra.
Being happy is a choice, I think is what I learnt from Dyer in 1978. Brendan O’Carroll, the Irish comedian maintains that too. Happiness according to the Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Centre’s, Dr Saamdu Chetri says it is simple, simply a choice to be happy or to be sad in any given situation. Very few wake up feeling happy every day, one that requires working at it every day. I am a fan of Mrs Brown’s Boys, created by Brendan O'Carroll who opened up about losing his first son, as I have, in an emotional interview on The Tommy Tiernan TV Show. But he also spoke about happiness. He believes nobody has to settle for anything, you have to choose happiness, it is an entitlement.
Dr Saamdu Chetri, says that the four pillars that holds the roof of the house of happiness are RICH - relationships, integrated/truthfulness, compassion, humanity on top is a roof of trust. Research has found that even engagement with death can have a positive effect. It results in not taking life for granted any more. Enjoy the small things again and relationships can improve. The research showed that by contemplating death can also provide these benefits. Perhaps my love of visiting old cemeteries had an unexpected benefit! Buddhist monks meditate in cemeteries. And especially in these pandemic days, death is much closer.
I like lists, sometimes. So here’s one that may help: 1. slow down to appreciate life’s little pleasures, savour the taste of a meal, or even just step outside to take a deep breath of fresh air, or have a coffee with a friend, with a nice view. The Christmas of 2020, we have rented a 21st floor apartment over a Spanish beach, just for the view. 2. Exercise, a neurotransmitter that makes your brain feel soothed and keeps you in control of your impulses. Have an exercise identity. Fake it until you make it 3. Spend money and energy on other people, and get a surge of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. A win win situation. 4. Surround yourself with the right people. Happiness spreads through, it builds confidence, stimulates creativity, and fun. 5. Stay positive. Glass half full thing. Instead of complaining about how things could have been or should have been, reflect on things that worked out and are grateful for. Keep working to find the best solution available to the problem, and then move on. 6. Sleep. Sleep recharges your brain, removing toxic proteins that accumulate during the day. 7. Socialise and have fun but also have meaningful interactions with deep conversations. 8. Since my own health issues, I have learnt to constantly evaluate my mood and health and make decisions, with this in mind, I scan my body for messages, e. g. pain or aches. 9. Never stop learning and always be open to new ideas, new people, new cultures, because you should be growing all the time. Not fixed in a routine or mindset. Change happens, shit happens, so it is how you respond to it. It’s how you pick yourself up and dust yourself off. What’s the alternative, staying down and licking your wounds. Sometimes you have to literally move on. People tend to be either open or shut. Decide what you are? I have written over 2000 words on this subject. Read some positive quotes here. Buy the books here.
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© Hugh Vaughan 2023
