"Do it Happy"

A mindset technique used by my son

⏱️ Read time: 5 mins (grab some coffee)

Praia das Maçãs - José Malhoa, 1918

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

We have as much to teach children as we have to learn from them. This becomes more evident the more time we spend with them.

As the father of a 10-year-old, I have plenty of examples of this. Recently I was scolding him for being up past midnight. Even though we were on vacation, we had plans to go for a hike the next morning and I knew he would be too tired and sleepy to get up.

But then he said, “You know, if we sleep happy, we don’t need to sleep as much.”

I didn’t have any comeback, so I left his room smiling and kind of proud of his argument.

But the phrase kept echoing in my mind, not so much for its particular meaning, but because it was yet another example of what a child can understand about the world when their mind isn't yet overly molded by adults.

There’s a magical innocence, free of filters, that allows them to see what we can no longer see. It’s their perception of life, and it’s different from ours. Well, it’s different from everyone else’s.

Interpretations of Reality

There is only one reality, one truth made up of facts and events, but we interpret it differently, as we don’t experience reality itself but rather the ripples it creates.

We use our receptors (sensory and cognitive) to capture these ripples, but as we grow older, we cover these receptors with layers of filters in our quest to get closer and closer to reality.

I’m not sure if these filters are applied to our minds or our hearts, but at a certain point in our lives, they begin to show up.

In my case, I think that in my eagerness to be more confident in my actions and ideas, I applied a filter to rid myself - so I hoped - of the naivety with which a child sees the world. But at the time in my life when I felt the need to protect myself from what surrounded me I didn’t yet have the life experience needed for that filter to be thin enough to eliminate only the naivety. So along with it came other filters.

• The filter of Distrust – Rejecting new ideas or viewpoints because I wasn’t entirely sure about them, at least until I had more information.

• The filter of Insecurity – Considering myself incapable of performing an activity or speaking on a subject unless I could do so at a level I deemed adequate.

• The filter of Responsibility – The pressure from various social circles (family, friends, co-workers, society) that expected certain behaviors (and rejected others).

• The filter of Reality – The social narrative and the generality of observable examples showed that most dreams are illusions, not life goals, so they shouldn’t be chased.

Building my Personality

All these filters (among others) contribute to forming my personality. Still, they’re not calibrated, i.e., for better or worse, they are not 100% effective in their function, and it’s through their constant tuning that I get closer to the person I want to be.

So, if at an earlier stage of my life, I added some raw layers to my personality, as I grow older and glimpse what I truly want for myself, I refined the filters to block out more of the negative and allow more of the positive to come through.

Maybe that’s the secret to personal fulfillment: knowing how to fine-tune the filters through which we interpret reality to achieve the best results for ourselves while crystallizing in our personality the values by which we want to be known.

This constant tweaking allows us to thrive because if a child’s innocence makes them interpret the ripples of events more beautifully, a greater sense of reality will help anticipate common outcomes for some situations, that usually aren’t that lovely.

An example of this was my son’s idea about sleeping “happy”, because as beautiful as it may be, the reality is that the next morning he didn’t want to wake up because he was too sleepy, so we didn’t go hiking that day.

But later that week we went to the beach, and he used the same principle to beat the cold waters of the North Atlantic.

- “If we enter the water happy, we won’t feel the cold!”

In contrast to previous beach trips, where he would spend 10 minutes to build the courage to dip his feet in the water, he was now screaming “I’m happy!” and diving straight into the waves.

The Lesson Learned

These two episodes with my son show me that the “do it happy” technique works better in some situations than others, so, as with most things in life, moderation is key, and this is a lesson we can both enjoy.

My son will eventually add some filters that will help him interpret reality more accurately, and I can adjust mine a little more, to open my mind to ideas like “do it happy” to achieve some results faster by caring more about internal sentiments than external factors.

Call to Action

I struggle with editing, it’s the hardest part for me as a writer, but for this essay I followed the “do it happy” technique and the truth is that it worked. Editing became enjoyable because I knew that once it was done, I could move on to my favorite part of the writing process: publishing.

So if you’re struggling to do something, whether it’s a life-changing decision or just a trivial task, try to “do it happy”.

Sometimes, a simple shift in mindset can make all the difference, so focus on the benefits of the outcome, not on the difficulties of reaching it. Give it a shot and let me know if it helped.

And don’t forget to check your filters, happy tuning!

-Danny

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📒My week

• I've been on vacation from my day job for the last two weeks, so my days have mostly consisted of beach time and long walks chasing Pokémon with my son for his Pokémon Go game (I might also have the game installed on my smartphone, and I might also play it... maybe 😁).

• Among the many great Substacks I read last week, one from

  Latham Turner
  really moved me. I can relate to his story since our sons are about the same age, and I also believe it's crucial to be in charge of many aspects of my son’s education. However, Latham took it to an impressively high level by homeschooling his son with incredible results. A true inspiration, and
  Building the Plane
  is a must-follow for everyone, especially parents.

  An Education of His Own

• I’m reading Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery, by Scott H. Young. It’s a bit too academic for me, but it’s a good complement to Ultralearning, which is more action-focused.
  I’m also dipping my toes into Dostoyevsky with Notes from the Underground. The style is fascinating, it feels like a first draft that doesn’t need editing (aka, my utopia).

📽️Video of the week

A sample of my future life as a successful writer.

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