What if the key to happiness is more than 2000 years old – and we just forgot it?
By Michelle Jenck, M Ed
Beginning Fall 2027, the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will move to a pass/no-credit system for first-semester freshmen. Letter grades will not appear on their transcripts or factor into their GPAs. This is an effort by the university to alleviate some of the stress and anxiety students often experience during college transition.
Whatever our thoughts might be regarding this policy, the real, underlying issue isn’t about grades. It is about how stress and anxiety seem to be increasingly more pervasive and debilitating and how we are choosing to respond to this trend. Social pressures, media, and other invasive influences constantly pull at our attention, emotions, and nervous systems in ways that make it very challenging to maintain a calm, clear mind. What is the antidote?
Eastern traditions may be a good place to explore. Patanjali offers a powerful upstream solution in Yoga Sutra 1.33, written some 2400 years ago:
“By cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion toward the suffering, gladness toward the virtuous, and equanimity toward the non‑virtuous, the mind becomes clear and serene.” (Emphasis mine.)
Having read the Yoga Sutras as a homework assignment for my yoga teacher training, I found myself pleasantly surprised. The writings are not poetic abstractions to meditate on, as I had assumed. They offer a practical framework for embodying emotional intelligence.
Often referred to as the four locks and four keys, this Sutra gives us a way to orient our mind toward clarity, discernment, empathy and healthier choices in our daily lives. All in service of – Serenity Now!
Lock 1: Happiness → Key: Friendliness
It may seem natural to be friendly toward happy people, yet this is often not the case. The happiness of others can trigger comparison, jealousy, or awareness of unmet needs in our own lives. Social media amplifies this, inviting us to measure our blooper reels against others’ highlight reels.
Friendliness is the key that unlocks this tension. When we genuinely celebrate the happiness and good fortune of others, we shift from scarcity to abundance. Friendliness suspends comparison and opens our nervous system to the possibility there is enough good out there for everyone.
Lock 2: Unhappiness → Key: Compassion
Unhappiness, especially in others, can test our patience and make us uncomfortable. When we encounter people who are struggling, it’s easy to react with annoyance, avoidance, judgment or unsolicited problem solving. Choosing compassion brings a genuine degree of patience and concern for the welfare of others, even when it is uncomfortable or inconvenient.
Compassion does not mean fixing or taking on another person’s pain. It means approaching others’ suffering with empathy and presence rather than resistance. This orientation quiets the mind because it embodies connection instead of control.
Lock 3: Virtue → Key: Delight
Virtues such as courage, patience, honesty, generosity, and humility are moral qualities we generally admire and wish we embodied more fully. Yet when others exemplify virtuous traits that we struggle with, we can feel defensive or even resentful. This is an important clue to something we might want to work on ourselves. If we admire a certain virtue, and then feel annoyed when someone demonstrates that trait, it can be a sign that our own thoughts and actions are not aligned with our true values.
Delight is the antidote. Instead of projecting self-criticism outward, we can take joy in witnessing virtue in action. Delighting in others’ strengths transforms comparison into inspiration. It allows us to grow through example rather than resisting discomfort.
Lock 4: Nonvirtuous Behavior → Key: Equanimity
This may be the most challenging pairing. I know it is for me. When people act unjustly or cause harm to others, our instinct is often anger or a desire to get back at the person. We also instinctively want to help them see the error of their ways. Equanimity is about not allowing oneself to be held captive to those feelings and desires. We can feel anger. We can set boundaries or take action to prevent harm. What we don’t have to do is try to control others’ behavior or surrender our peace of mind over to them. Anger is like carrying a poisoned dart aimed at someone else. Over time, the poison does more harm to the vessel carrying it than to its intended target.
Once again, the paradox is that we stand a better chance of helping others change by modeling the behavior we desire rather than demanding it from others. It may take longer (forever, even) but that’s part of the process. It is when we let go of the illusion of control over the outcome that we can achieve true serenity.
So, when you feel stressed, annoyed or anxious, explore if you might possess the key to unlocking peace of mind instead.
Thank you for your interest. Follow more of my work on Substack at The Tao te Mitchy, PQ Initiative, and Divergent Ideas.
Photo by Leonie Zettl on Unsplash
