Positive Psychology Column for 7-13-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. Where's Your Life Headed? Would you like your life to go from ordinary to extraordinary?  Are you looking for something more satisfying than what your life provides now?  Do you want to feel that what you are doing with your life really matters? Most everyone I know has had to face extraordinary challenges - at work, in marriage, raising children, taking care of aging parents or improving our community.  But being able to see past the problems to envision positive outcomes is what enables people to achieve extraordinary results.      People describe the problems of their past and present in excruciating detail.  But when asked about how they want their future to unfold, they usually give some vague response about being happy.  When queried about what purpose they see their life fulfilling, they usually become completely dumbfounded. There’s an old saying in psychology, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.”  Having a purpose is what creates a destination in people lives. During my three-year sailing sabbatical I noticed that people who build places in the southern climes like to have palm trees on their property. But every time a storm struck bringing high winds, these tropical trees would be blown down.  So it was pretty typical to see these tall palm trees propped up with boards and baling wires. Of course, none of the external sources of support did much good when the big winds came again.  Inevitably the trees would be toppled by the force of the storm. Apparently many people would prefer to live with the facade of these shallow rooted palms than to plant the type of tree that have a deep root system which would be able to withstand the high winds of the storms. It seems to me that for many people this same phenomenon characterizes the way they choose to live their lives - propping themselves with external supports to look good on the surface. The embarrassing reality is that most people follow the crowd, which nowadays is driven by excesses in spending, eating, drinking and so on.  Then in order to be able to buy lots of expensive stuff, these folks need to work their tails off at a job they don’t find fulfilling.  These external sources of motivation are based on underlying feelings of fear that you won’t have enough money, or status, or approval, or even food.  But the fact is that once you have enough money to provide the basics in terms of shelter, food and clothing, there are drastically diminishing returns for achieving happiness by having more of these things. The statistics show that since the 1950's the per person income (adjusted for inflation) has doubled in the U.S. But during that same time period the rate of depression has risen ten times, the divorce rate has jumped to 67% for first marriages, and more than 55% of Americans have developed serious weight problems. Money certainly doesn’t buy happiness.  The highest paid professionals in our country are lawyers, which in a 2002 Gallup poll turned out to be the unhappiest profession in America.  Physicians are the second highest paid group, but according to the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance database doctors have suicide rates up to six times that of the general population. Two-thirds of Americans tell the Gallup poll that they are “not very happy.” But they keep spending, eating, drinking, drugging and fighting with their spouse.  Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Most people continue to make bad choices that actually intensify their level of fear regarding their security and survival, prompting negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, discouragement and despair.  It’s like being in a boat that starts to take on water.  You immediately start bailing.  But when your purpose is to keep your self from sinking, you can’t navigate toward your destination. This is true for life in general.  When you are focused on patching up the holes in your life to protect what little happiness you have left, you are not looking at how you could have a purpose in life that would be bringing you a flow of fulfilling energy. Ready for a change?  Begin by imagining being at the end of your life (average life expectancy is now 85) and looking back.   What was most important in your life?  How did you contribute to making the world a better place?  What choices did you make that gave you the most satisfaction?   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.