There Is No App for Happiness

“You have to understand that [life and time are] the same thing,” Strom continues, “but we’re separating them. If you look at your watch without just seeing what time it is, you’re counting down the moments of your life. I don’t think there’s anybody out there who, when they’re on their deathbed, if they’re asked what their regrets are they’re going to say, ‘I only wish I had watched more reality TV.’ We have to choose our technology wisely. If we bring technology into our life, it should simplify our life. It should give us more free time, not take it away.”

The same principal can be applied to social media, or to work. “When we make decisions that involve our life-force energy—money, time, these are really parts of the same thing—we have to ask […] what are the costs going to be to your life, your happiness?”

The third imperative is a daily regime integrating breath and movement. “Our breath is interrelated to our emotional life and our mind,” says Strom. “When we breathe in a certain way, every day, there’s a cumulative effect which helps to keep our nervous system calm. If we don’t keep our nervous system calm, we’re going to end up having to medicate ourselves. Sometimes people aren’t connecting those dots. It’s like, ‘Why is it important to calm my nervous system?’ Well it’s so you don’t have to take blood pressure medications, so you don’t have to take anti-depressants, that’s why. That’s the other end of it. That’s what’s going to happen to you if you don’t learn, subconsciously, to keep your nervous system calm.

“When you do a breathing regime on a regular basis, you’re not only calm, you’re clear-minded. It’s like drinking coffee without the jitters or the mood swings or the collapse at the end of the day because the coffee’s gone. You’re clear, you’re sharp, you can focus.” Strom cites hatha yoga, qigong, and tai chi as effective practices for finding this connection between mind, body, and spirit.

Once the nervous system and mind are calm, we begin to see the world differently and become less self-centered, explains Strom. “People can have the best intentions, but if we’re chained to the past or frozen in our emotions, which so many people are, we can’t get very far no matter how good our intentions are. When a human being is suffering—and suffering includes depression, hunger, anxiety, sleep-deprivation—we are very myopic and less sympathetic to other people. And when we heal and find we have meaning in our life, our scope opens up to include other people and we become very sympathetic to other people. So as we heal, we become, I believe, more ethical, more compassionate, more empathetic. A lot of our problems are solved simply because of that.”