By: Sushil Bhatia

Dr. Sushil Bhatia, PhD is a professor at Suffolk University in Boston, MA. He is the author of two books geared towards achieving happiness: Laugh, Think Neutral & Save Your Life and Just Say Yes to Laughing Your way to Fitness with Yoga and Meditation (and that’s no joke).  Bhatia is also the president and CEO of JMD Manufacturing, a manufacturer and global distributor of marking and coding equipment.  

We will do whatever it takes to make our nieces and nephews happy, but how far should we go to achieve it?

The best way to reach happiness is with the practice of power of detachment. Think for a minute of happiness as an equation:

The lesser the gap between the two the greater is our happiness.  When we work hard at something our expectations of getting a good result go up raising our expected results and us getting attached to it.

But when the actual results (AR) come out and they are generally less than our expected results (ER), we become unhappy because we were so attached to ER. This idea doesn’t just apply to our general happiness but to the everyday moments in life too.

For example, you just recently watched a tutorial on how to make the perfect curled hairstyle with little to no effort. You’re excited to try this technique on your young niece next time you spend some time together. She is also very excited because you have happened to talk up this video and the pretty curls. You have now unknowingly become “attached” to the expected result. Unfortunately, you’re no hairstylist so your niece’s look doesn’t come out exactly the way you wanted. What do you do?  Laugh it off! Even if you’re unhappy, fake a laugh. It will help train you to detach from the outcome.

This goes to show that the only thing we can control is our actions and not the end result. It teaches us to focus only on our actions and do not get attached to the results. It is tough, but it has to be done. That does not mean we do not have goals and ambitions. Without these, it is difficult to focus on our work. Thus the lesson is to work hard, stay focused on our goals, but detach ourselves from the outcome as we cannot control that.

Trying to think positive all the time is very stressful and thinking negative is not desirable. By bringing our mind to “THINK NEUTRAL,” we bring it to state of equilibrium where is it easy to go positive and avoid being negative. The path to get to the practice of detachment is through laughter and “THINK NEUTRAL.” Laughter helps us get focused which, when coupled with meditation, takes us to the desirable state of thinking neutral, detachment from results, and in turn to happiness.

Take a moment with your niece or nephew to simply laugh. Try thinking of funny moments or even just force out a laugh and the real laughter will follow. If you have a little more time (and patience) and want to try something different, have them join you in 20 minutes of silence or meditation. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. If you can’t keep the silence for twenty minutes, that's ok, it might just spark another laugh. Keep laughing!

Published: February 25, 2015