🎤 PODCAST • Finding Happiness ~ There IS a method ~ a short interview with author Craig Biddle
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When we have so much...

Now, how would you like to love your life? I don't mean just like it. I don't mean just settle and, you know, it's the day-to-day routine stuff. But I mean really love your life. With me today is author Craig Biddle. Welcome to the show, Craig. Thank you. Hi. Craig, you've written a book, Loving Life. And what I found interesting about it was that you talked about not only

just being a happy person, put on a happy face, be a Pollyanna or the rose-colored glasses. You talked about achieving happiness. Now that makes me hopeful because if I'm somebody who doesn't, you know, maybe I may not even have gone to college, but I'm sitting here saying, how do I achieve my happiness? It sounds like there's a method, some way that I can go about achieving it. Answer that.

Absolutely there is. Happiness is not something that we're born with. It's something that we achieve. Happiness is a state of mind that ultimately comes to you from pursuing and achieving your life-serving goals.

You may be born into a family that has a greater degree of wealth than another family, and you may be born into parents that treat you better than somebody else's, but none of that changes the fact that you have free will and that you can make your decisions in life and set your goals and pursue them or not. Yeah, but you know what? If you're born into a rich family, you really have an edge, don't you? Yes.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I would certainly say there's an advantage to having parents who can afford to send you to better schools, etc. But that doesn't change the fact that you have free will, and there are countless people out there who were born into poverty who then picked themselves up by the bootstraps, so to speak. And if they want wealth or if they wanted wealth, they achieved it by their own choices and actions. And I think many of us know of examples where somebody has been born into wealth...

And they just wither their lives away. They don't enjoy their lives. They don't make the most of it. They don't know how to be productive, how to choose goals for themselves. And they end up just being a worthless playboy or a bum. I'd need more than two hands to count the people I know who've said that, Bill. Who've said what? Who were born into very well-off families and had every advantage and opportunity in the world and have done absolutely nothing with their life. Give me an example of some of these people.

Some of the people that I went to school with, that I can recall one person in particular who was probably an outright genius in terms of his intelligence, but never applied himself.

to anything serious, or never applied himself seriously to anything of importance, I should say. Instead, he became a big partier and he was very funny and could carry a crowd and always seemed kind of happy. Well, today he is miserable in a job that he doesn't like at all. And I don't see him often, but every once in a while living in the small city that I do live in, Richmond,

I run into him and, you know, he chose that destiny and he had the advantage of, you know, that everybody wishes they had, you know, great degree of intelligence and born into a well-off family. And so sometimes that backfires royally. Exactly. So when you say achieving it, say I'm not born into that family and I want to be happy. How do I go about it? What would you advise me to do?

I'd say that there are two things you need most. Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad and then Alan will be back. Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw?

Here it is. The Selfish Path to Romance. A serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting. I want to be happy. How do I go about it? What would you advise me to do?

I'd say that there are two things you need most. You need to set goals. You need to make decisions about what you want in life. And that takes a lot of thought. You know, you don't just choose the first thing that comes to mind. You have to look at the full context of, you know, the things that you care about in life and then determine which ones are most important.

And then you need principles, you need ideas to help guide you in the pursuit of those goals. Ultimately, what you need is a proper morality. Believe it or not, that's what's at issue here. And unfortunately, the word morality has gotten a bad rap historically. People think that morality is all about self-sacrifice and self-reliance.

Loving Life, my book explains that it's not about self-sacrifice at all. It's about the achievement of personal happiness.

Okay, so I'm still that housewife and I'm listening to you and saying, okay, you're talking about principles and you're talking... Setting goals I get. I need to set goals. But how do I go about setting goals? And how do I go about doing this thing, achieving happiness? I mean, I want this thing, happiness. I'm sick of being depressed. I'm sick of being anxious. I'm sick of...

Being obsessive compulsive, just cleaning the house the way I'm doing. I want my life back. I want to enjoy it. How do I go about doing it? Well, here's the thing. Life and happiness are complex things and they're difficult to achieve. A life of happiness is difficult to achieve. And there is no person and there's no philosophy that can tell a person what particular things...

he or she had to do to become happy the only thing that a good morality can tell you is what you need to do in general terms what kind of actions you need to take to achieve the goals that you choose if I were to say to somebody well what you need to do to be happy and go out and be a doctor

well, you know, that would just be a random assertion. It wouldn't have any connection to that person's values. They need to decide by introspection. So you don't let other people decide for you. Exactly. And what you're saying is that you introspect, you ask yourself some questions and say, what do I like? What do I want for my life?

what would bring me that sense of thrill or that excitement of getting out of bed first thing in the morning? Exactly. You need to choose the things that you would enjoy if you pursued them, and then you need to pursue them. And to do so, you need

to have guidance in the form of, as I said earlier, principles, and that requires work. It sounds a little bit heady in some ways. It sounds philosophical, and it is. But that's what a life of happiness requires.

Okay, let me see if I understand you correctly. There are different types of principles. One principle could be do only for others, not for yourself. Yes. And that would absolutely destroy me. I could also say do whatever I want, however I want, and get whatever I want, and step on whoever I want. That's a no.

another principle that could destroy my happiness even though it would look like i'm getting things like the playboy who's out there you know collecting women or something he's not happy even though it will look to the outside world that he's happy and the alternative is really thinking long range you know if you want the goal of ballroom dancing or you want the goal of going back to school for a specific career or you want the

goal of a romantic partner. Think about how to achieve that in a very rational manner. And by rational, it's not rationalistic. It's thinking about it clearly and in a way that will help you attain the goal in a way that's doable, not in some extreme way that's not doable. Like, oh, just find your husband this week. I did it.

Is that what you mean? Exactly. You mentioned that there are false principles, or what I would call false principles, but to put it in terms that might be easier for someone to understand, anti-life principles or sacrificial principles. And those, I say in my book, Loving Life, are wrong. Any principle that says you should sacrifice yourself or that you should sacrifice others is a morally incorrect principle.

Okay, and we're almost out of time, so it's morally incorrect if any guidance that you have in your own mind tells you to sacrifice yourself, to be a doormat in life, and it's also morally wrong to be the playboy in life and to just go after principles and go after what you want willy-nilly. And I'm talking with Craig Biddle, and you can get his book, Loving Life, at Amazon.com or at my website, drkenner.com. Thank you very much for being with us. My pleasure.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to drkenner.com and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, The Serious Romance Guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke. Initially, you learn about your partner one detail at a time. After you've gotten to know your partner well, and this may take years, there will be times when you find that you know what your partner is thinking or feeling about them.

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