The By-Laws of Happiness

Is there a way out of the boxes we put ourselves in?

When my son Jacob was little he used to love to read and watch Thomas the Tank engine stories. We sang along to some of the tunes, including a little ditty about the importance of rules and regulations. Cynically considering the lyrics years later, I’m tempted to see them as a tool to indocrinate kids to obey their parents, teachers and government unquestioningly, which is the opposite of what I want from my society or my kids (though my 13 year old might disagree).

Those who followed my 2022 Toronto mayoral campaign may have heard me speak about the mess of bylaws we have (200,000+) and how costly, ineffective and inefficient I believe they are. Part of my vision for the city was freedom from the myriad ways our government tries to micromanage and control every aspect of our lives. While adhering to strict controls may be appropriate for a rail system, in the real world my feeling is that byzantine rules, enforced from above, inhibit creativity, innovation, conflict resolution and progress towards more beautiful and healthy relationships with ourselves and the natural world we live in.

Earlier this summer one anonymous neighbour called the city to complain about my dog barking (a toy Pomeranian who admittedly has a high pitched bark when it erupts, but is mostly quiet and either indoors with us or out for an outdoor adventure in the park, on the bike or in our canoe).

Koko on a ten day canoe trip in Quetico Park with my family this summer

The encounter with city bureaucracy revived my frustration and sense of powerlessness about an all controlling state. The subsequent vortex of despair I was thrown into over the call from animal control (yes I know it was an over-reaction) led me to do some cognitive investigations into why I was so upset with my facilitator Susan using a technique called The Work.

Not only did our inquiries help me come back to the real world and out of my catastrophic mindset, it also led me to realize I have an internal Big Brother (or Sister) that rivals the external one in its desire to control.

The rules and regulations I have for myself are more intrusive and damaging, more capricious and ineffective, than those of the government. When I disobey the rules, the punishment for the infractions is insidious because of its invisibility. No fines are issued or jail time incurred, but when the bylaw officer within me rears her head I feel a kind of inescapable internal pain.

The good news is, now that I’m aware of her, I’m not powerless against the internal bylaw officer or the rules she creates. And together we can work together to dismantle my inner bureaucracy, one rule at a time.

Invisible rules for myself that I’ve just become aware of (and am now on a mission to find more of) include Climenhaga bylaw #25137 “No Watching TV”, bylaw #9084 “Don’t Scroll on Twitter” and bylaw #006 “Don’t stay up past 10 pm”. Sometimes exemptions are granted but such exemptions, like real world exemptions, involve torturous bureaucracy with complex negotiations and unreliable outcomes. The specificity of the bylaws can change regularly and without notice, and they’ve been invisible due to the cloak of belief in my values that is not the values themselves. That is, while values like staying off screens and getting a good night’s sleep may be healthy in theory, when the values get transformed into codified laws of behaviour my reasons for having the values (basically, to enjoy life and connect positively with the world around me) disappear, and only the strict rules remain.

The bylaw officer within me turns me into someone who is both paranoid of and sneaky with myself. If I violate the Twitter bylaw I scroll furtively, like I have to hide it from everyone, feeling deep shame and that I’m an awful person. If I watch something silly on Netflix while I’m doing the dishes I have to run a constant internal narrative of “I’m doing the dishes, it’s productive, I’m helping the household” to try to argue with the bylaw officer that says I’m wasting my time and rotting my brain. She even follows me on vacation at my parents’ cottage, when I stay up past bedtime doing puzzles. As I pore over the pieces I unconsciously hold my back rigid in trying to avoid the officer who tells me it’s too late. I’m scared to look at the clock as it ticks toward 1 am and when I do go to bed I feel like I’ve let the world down with my irresponsibility.

Rest assured, it’s not that I feel the bylaw officer every day or every moment. I’m often not aware of the internal authority that a lifetime of conditioning has on me - whether it’s Thomas the Tank or school teachers or my own decision to take a hard line with regard to something like diet or the environment. But when that bylaw officer does show up, she makes my life miserable, without actually creating the so-called “better behaviour” that she is meant to encourage.

Thanks to inquiry, I’ve realized that without the bylaw enforement officer breathing down my neck I can be alive to the current moment. I can notice if I’m tired enough and want to go to bed, or instead want to take immense pleasure in the satisfaction of the puzzle I’m doing. I can see if Twitter is actually giving me any useful information or gratification, and log off of my own volition if not. And I can appreciate if a movie is giving me a wonderful escape and fun entertainment or if I’d rather do something else instead.

If you think my by-law officer sounds unreasonable, I agree. For some reason, a long time ago I granted her the power and the authority to harass me, in the mistaken belief it would make me a better person. Now I’m finally realizing that my bylaws don’t make me a better person. We really are each divine beings. Free of our delusions, we want to take care of ourselves and love other people. We don’t need rules and regulations to keep us on the straight and narrow. We can trust in ourselves, treat the internal voice as friend to be curious about instead of dictator to obey or hide from, and live fully in each and every moment. Thomas can keep his rules and regulations, but we can be guided by love instead.