Latest / Good Morning From The Chicken Coop! / Season 4 - Episode 61 - The pursuit of happiness

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Season 4 - Episode 61 - The pursuit of happiness · Good Morning From The Chicken Coop!

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome to the good morning from the Chicken
• 0:04
  Coop podcast. My name is Kim Johnson and I am
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  a mastermindset coach, creative strategist, and also happen to
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  be a farmer. This is my chicken coop and I
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  come out here every day to record a podcast to teach
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  distinctions, possibilities, new ways of thinking, and just bring
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  some joy into the world. So welcome to the coop, and
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  let's start your day off in a fantastic way.
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  Hey everybody, good morning from the Chili Chicken coop.
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  Yes, the sun is up and it's Sunday, so I can be out here a
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  little bit later, but it's cold and makes me say spring is a
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  little too far away. Anyway, we're talking about the
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  pursuit of happiness. Yeah, big subject, right?
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  I think everyone intense, I'm going to use that word, intends
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  to be happy. They want to be happy.
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  They think about being happy. But it's a pursuit.
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  And it often feels like it's a puzzle.
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  And the entire puzzle is a solid color and you're trying to sort
• 1:01
  through it and figure it out. And the challenge with all of
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  that is that sometimes it sucks. And sometimes you're doing
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  something that you think will make you happy and in turn, it
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  actually doesn't make you happy. And you're saying to yourself, I
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  am just don't even understand why.
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  I mean, I intended for this to be a good thing.
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  I intended that I would be happy doing it.
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  And then it turns out it's not. And often we try to do things,
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  things, that's the optimal word here, things to make us happy.
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  And, you know, being happy is not about the things.
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  It's it, it, it accentuates it. It's kind of like that old
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  saying that money doesn't make somebody awful.
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  They accentuates what's already there.
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  Or drugs do the same thing. Alcohol does the same thing.
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  And it kind of accentuates what's really going on.
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  And I don't know, I don't like absolutes as any of you know,
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  who listen all the time. I don't think there are
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  absolutes in this world. I think it's always in the frame
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  of maybe, but one of the things that I, I know for certain this
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  is a, an absolute certain thing is that this is a, a skill.
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  Being happy is a skill. It's something you have to
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  cultivate. You have to work on it.
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  You have to choose to find it. Like for instance, I did a
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  podcast last week about how hard the farm work is and it is, but
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  I find I choose to find happiness in it.
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  I choose to find things in it. They, it does make me feel a
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  certain way, but is it because the work is fun or is it that I
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  find fun in it? It's a big question, right?
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  So you can follow all the right steps of someone else's
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  happiness plan that created them happiness and then find out this
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  is terrible and how many times we've done that.
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  I, I can remember being in high school taking classes for art,
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  like I wanted to be an artist so badly, writer, artist, all of
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  those things on that creative side of the brain.
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  And I went to an art class and I was just daunted by how awful
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  the process was. I didn't like one bit of it.
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  Not one little thing about the class did I enjoy.
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  And I remember thinking to myself, this can't be what this
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  is like. I mean, this is terrible.
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  And I, I kind of was too young to think about it the proper way
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  where it was like it's this is about one particular form 1
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  particular class. Instead of making it about the
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  whole subject, which is what I ended up doing, making it about
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  the whole subject of art as opposed to just making it about
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  one person who's just not happy themselves and worried about
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  teaching high school kids art, which can't be easy.
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  Let's just put it out there and I, I refuse to take more
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  classes. I was just like, no, I'm not
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  going to do it. Now if I look back, could I say
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  that was a mistake? Well, I could if I chose to, but
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  I won't because I'm like, no, it wasn't a mistake.
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  It was just part of the journey. Again, it's a maybe for me.
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  And I think that's really important in, in one of my
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  personal tricks with this is in the pursuit of happiness.
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  Everything gets framed under that.
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  And then you keep, you can keep searching and seeing that what
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  works, But it, there's no secret formula for everyone.
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  It I mean, that's the, that's the paradox of it all.
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  There is no secret formula that we all have to follow in the
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  pursuit of happiness. And one of the biggest things
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  that we do that take us out of the frame of happiness is
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  thinking that we did something wrong and criticizing ourselves
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  in it. It wasn't wrong that I didn't
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  like the class. It was just a choice in the
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  moment, but it was part of the journey, so it wasn't wrong.
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  The journey you're on is not wrong.
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  And you got to be careful of that self criticism because it's
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  a big thing. It's a huge thing.
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  I was out here, I was talking about how we're doing a bunch of
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  work on the farm and I was out here talking to my husband
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  yesterday telling him about how well I wish I had done this
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  differently. And I, I was saying it and I
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  heard myself and I was like, huh, I do wish I had done it
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  differently in one certain aspect of the the garden that we
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  were talking about. However, I don't regret it and I
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  don't, I'm not sitting there lamenting it and criticizing
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  myself for it. I did what I did because I knew
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  what I knew. But now I know more so I can do
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  something different. As Maya Angelou always says, you
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  know, when you know better, you can do better.
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  And at the time I didn't know better, so I wasn't doing
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  better. And it's a tricky little thing,
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  but in the pursuit of happiness, you have to allow yourself that
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  distance from self criticism. Go into that framework of maybe.
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  And remember it's all part of the same journey.
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  All right, my friends, I hope you have a blessed day and
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  pursue some happiness today. I know I am and I will see you
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  all tomorrow. Bye.