The Secrets to Happiness: Secret #7

Talk about feeling guilty. This secret is one that I struggle with every single day. Even as I vow to try, I'll violate it within seconds because of my lack of emotional discipline. That was a fancy way of saying that I react before I think.

In keeping with the tradition of keeping these secret statements simple, here is Ol' #7 (there is a joke there for the spirit lovers) stated as succinctly as possible:

Withhold judgment

Why is that important? Why is that a secret to happiness?

Because in nearly every situation our opinions are irrelevant. There are exceptions and we'll cover those in a minute. This secret was almost "keep your mouth shut" but I felt that would have just been a mask for the real issue. Internalizing your feelings about how good or bad we think something is, isn't the problem. The problem is our obsessive need to judge in the first place.

Now, if we are having trouble keeping our thoughts away from judging, then a good first step would be just to keep quiet about it. The old adage "if you don't have anything good to say, then don't say it" covers this rule. But quietly harboring an internal dislike of something or person or situation isn't really happy behavior.

Let's restate: the problem is not whether we let the world know that we think a particular thing or event is good or bad, instead it is the fact that we evaluate everything in terms of whether we like or dislike it, about whether we think it is good or bad.

Of course, there are exceptions to this. We need to make ethical and legal judgments. We are not obligated to be passive on questions of right and wrong. And sometimes, our opinions are solicited. We are asked to name our favorites or least favorites. (Nothing says that we're required to answer these questions, though.)

To be sure, this is a tough one; well, at least for me it is. The next few secrets are going to be a little easier.

I would like to hear your opinions on this secret (oh, the irony!) You can agree, disagree, enhance or correct in the comments.

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