In my email box this morning is an invitation of which I cannot at this time take advantage. Authors Janet Ellis and Andrew Copson are presenting their new book, How To Be a Happy Human Being, in London... "Andrew Copson OBE is Chief Executive of Humanists UK and one of the UK's leading voices on religion, belief, and society. He is a regular on BBC, ITV, and Sky, and co-author, with Alice Roberts, of the Sunday Times bestseller The Little Book of Humanism. In 2025 he became the first person to receive an OBE for services to the non-religious community. Janet Ellis is a writer and broadcaster, and President of Humanists UK." I would love to travel from here to there and participate in the authors' discussion; but I will instead search for the book so that I can read and share it with others.
However, after 73 years of life, I have a few thoughts that will start my Sunday morning as it should. This is not advice as such. Every person must live their life well and in their own way -- to the best of their ability without harming others. I will share my ideas because writing is a way to reflect, meditate, restore the good in us, and share the stories that make humanity better.
A happy human being is one who accepts that they could not choose their birth parents nor the adults who nurtured and taught them from birth to adolescence. We start our lives in families, homes, communities, tribes, neighborhoods, schools, and children's sanctuaries that are not of our own choosing. We start our lives with genetic material and physical health that are not of our choosing. Often, those who boast as if they owned their childhood are hiding behind entitlement and privilege.
Acceptance is vital to our mental health. In our teen and adult years, we should not unconditionally, weakly accept and kneel to all our circumstances. We must develop the mental and physical muscles we need to fight, flee, adapt, resist, learn, grow, suffer, and love. But those who never accept that their births and childhoods were determined and shaped by the adults and circumstances over which they had no power are doomed to cyclical failures and sadness.
As a consequence, failures will not be learning or growth opportunities, cirumstances that can nurture empathy and spur mastery. They will be merely opportunities to wear a martyr's cross and blame others:
"My family (guardians, parents, teachers) hated and abused me. I need ___ to control my feelings and face life."
"I blame ____ for this situation. I was born to succeed. I have the best genes in me."
"Failure is not an option. Therefore, I am a failure."
"The world is against me. God has cursed me."
If parents neglect their responsibility to teach resilience and persistence in their children, their children have a poor start to life. If parents realize all their best efforts to teach resilience and persistence will not see immediate positive results, those parents hope the lessons will be remembered. Every young adult has multiple other teachers in life (coworkers, family, mentors, supervisors, peers, healthcare workers, books) to guide their decisions without enabling poor behaviors.
Darn it all if our own Donald J Trump is not an exemplar of the fool who cannot accept reality. He boasts about his genes and heritage but does it because, #1 He does not understand the science of DNA or 'nature versus nurture' arguments. He believes he is born to greatness in a very literal sense, rejecting the reality that he was and is nothing more than a Useful Idiot. #2 Others in his genetic family became good people, total opposites of the rapist liar and thief that he is. They accept responsibility and accountability; Donald does not. #3 The privilege he was born into became his crutch, and society's biases in favor of white wealthy men enabled his crude, embecilic, cruel, criminal, self-serving behaviors. He learned to blame others for all his failures.
Acceptance of one's birth and early childhood determines one's ability to build happiness, because we cannot change what is behind us. We can only move forward... into the next hour and days, shaping our ideas and circumstances, reflecting on the changes we need to make and the skills we need to hone, setting goals and determining directions, strengthening good relationships and letting go of those that harm us.
Happy adults know that struggle is a vital part of learning new skills. And it is natural resistance to our efforts within the societies we live and work. When we struggled as babies and children, our parents protected us from harm and praised our efforts. When we struggled in school and relationships and games, our parents protected us from harm and praised our efforts. If our parents understood the importance of struggle -- the resilience and persistence we needed for learning and growing -- they stood back and resisted intervention. Some parents because of their own immaturity and insecurities did not allow their children the privilege of struggle. They blamed others when their children did not immediately grasp new ideas, knowledge, friends, and skills.
Achieving something without struggle is nice when it happens. But it is rare that the achievement sans any struggle is worth owning. Whether we want new friends, stronger relationships, renewal, knowledge, healing, skills, or recognition, assumptions are poison. We cannot expect to create the appropriate fertile circumstances without digging up bones, bothering the complacent others, meeting resistance, or persisting beyond our comfort zones. Interference, noise, backlash, repetition, failures, rewrites and ugly self reflections will be obstacles through which we must tunnel.
Adults who avoid struggles are those who achieve very little in their lives. Why else are there so many middle-age and elderly adults who give in to superficial indulgences, passivity, mediocrity, or poor physical and mental health?
Happy adults look forward to the future and want to shape it. After 73 years, I have seen many adults shorten their lives because they could not envision a new chapter, a different way of living, learning new ideas, or changing their minds. They lived more years and decades -- but as dead people, as cultists or as loners, as unforgiving and intolerant grouches. And one's financial standing has a minimal role in their happiness. One can be happy and worry about finances at the same time.
I've watched many documentaries about WWII and the human devastation. Survivors of concentration camps and genocide attempts have been interviewed ever since their 'liberations' after 1945. I've noted two traits of survivors, people who experienced the worst of humanity but lived to find freedom, home, love, and peace.
#1 They accepted their suffering as cirumstances beyond their control and responsibility. Some of them participated in holding accountable the people who committed the atrocities. Other survivors preferred to use silence and live in silence about those atrocities. But they all agreed that their survival and futures depended on reality, not fancy -- that they were victims then but are no longer, that the perpetrators own the cruelty but as survivors they own their futures.
#2 They learned early that their survival, renewal, healing, growth, and successes depended on looking forward. While held as prisoners facing starvation or murder, they envisioned their futures and believed that they might be among those who lived to see freedom. After freedom, the struggles and resistance were no longer obstacles to their futures. They were learning and growing opportunities.
Happy adults live in reality and maintain good behaviors: living healthy, building relationships around love and positive projects, pursuing short-term and life-long aspirations, creating art and peaceful environments, helping others, learning new ideas and exploring new places. And when the days and months of stagnation happen...because they will, perhaps strong obstacles that thwart good behaviors...happy adults have learned that 'This Too Shall Pass'. They continue to look forward.