Why can't we just decide to be happy?

We’re not in control of our lives as much as we think. Most of our actions are automatic. When you drive a car, walk or brush your teeth, the movements of your muscles and countless other activities are performed without thinking, by the sub-conscious part of your mind. It is this automatic part of our mind that decides how happy we feel. That is why you can’t just suddenly choose to be really happy.

So the real challenge is to convince our sub-conscious mind that we are happy. Unfortunately it only really pays attention to our old fashioned primitive senses. The kind of things a caveman might have seen, heard, smelt, tasted and touched. Like our caveman, our sub-conscious never learnt to read.

This is why you might find yourself reading a self-help book with lots of clever ideas but somehow you don’t end up putting them into practice. However after seeing a picture or film of someone enjoying a picnic on sunny summer’s day you can wake up one morning with an irresistible urge to go for a picnic.

This blog contains a few of 118 cartoons I have designed to show your sub-conscious ways of becoming happier. As a General Practitioner in the UK I’ve always enjoyed helping patients feel happier or less anxious using a variety of psychological techniques. You can choose to spend time thinking how each cartoon relates to your own life, or just quickly flick through them trying to spot mice. For your first time I would recommend looking quickly at a few cartoons and looking at a few more the day after. If there is one you are particularly drawn to, you might like to think why you like it so much.