By: Javier Sanchez

We spend our lives in search of happiness. We tell ourselves it’s just around the bend. If only we had a little bit more money. Or I’ll be happy once I have a bigger house. Or a dog. Or more peace. We constantly fly toward the next thing that promises true bliss only to read further into the book of life. The next chapter tells us that happiness doesn’t happen at the end of journey—we find fulfillment IN the journey. Not sure which guru came up with that, though it sounds true enough.

Happiness starts with acceptance. Complete and full ownership of who you are. The most earnest look in the mirror with all of your demons, weaknesses, fears and embarrassing faults staring right back at you. You procrastinate? Fine. You’re a procrastinator (no relation to the fact that I write this past my deadline). You steal. Fine. You’re a thief. You like to sing in the shower. Well, I’m not sure there’s a word for that. But you get the point.

The world is separated into two distinct columns. In the first are events that you can control. In the other are events out of your control. How you approach each column determines the extent to which you can achieve happiness.

A few nights ago, I took the advice I heard either from the book I’ve been reading, “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” by Joseph Nguyen or some self help guru off of TikTok. Nevertheless, the advice led to an epiphany. I wrote down all of the good things or thoughts that happened that day and in a separate column, all of the bad things or thoughts.

I came up with seven good things ranging from ticking things off of my to do list, going to the chiropractor, tidying up my work space. And oh yeah, I exercised in the morning even though I really didn’t want to. On the other side of the page, I wrote down all of the negative things like I ate poorly, I heard that China was developing technology that was leaving our country behind (which made me very anxious), and the discovery of a mass grave of mostly women in Jalisco, Mexico. All in all, I also came up with seven negative thoughts and situations.

When I compared the good happenings with the bad things, a remarkable revelation transpired. I realized that all of the good things that happened, happened because I made them happen. On the negative side, the things that made me anxious, fearful or basically, all of the things that made me the opposite of happy, came from situations that I could not or did not control. In fact, in my mind, of all the negative things that happened that day, only two out of the seven situations were things I could control.

Taking ownership of everything in your life. Even of the ugly things that make us who we are—represent the essence of happiness. They show us that action makes happiness. Moving toward something beats worrying about things we cannot control. If we are a procrastinator then fix it. A thief? Stop stealing. But to concentrate on the things that are out of our control is a recipe for unhappiness.

Nguyen says that “what we fear is how we imagine we’ll feel if an undeserved outcome happens.” Fear, anxiety and unhappiness come from how we THINK we’ll feel. In other words, all of the negative thoughts in our mind are manifestations of nothing. Literally nothing but the anticipation of an imaginary reaction to something that either hasn’t happened or is something out of my control.

Actions that improve our health, our bodies, and our relationships create the happiness that negativity cannot. We give negative thoughts and other people’s opinions too much power. We are frozen with fear by the what if’s. We only live once. Make it a good one. No one’s going to care about you when you die. But I can assure you that on your death bed you’ll have the regret of not taking that chance or being too embarrassed to take that risk. You’ll look back and laugh and think. This world is silly. Why didn’t I just do it.

Javier Sanchez is the former Mayor of Espanola, an independent businessman, and El Rito Media investor and columnist.