I can’t comprehensively cover this subject in a short blog, but I can give you my view point on what I think happiness is, and where you might find more of it. People have spent eternity trying to understand, neatly package up and sell the idea of happiness – but what is happiness and how can we get more of it?
Most of us spend a great deal of our lives seeking more. More joy, more success, more pride, contentment, more wealth, more friends, better health, to be slimmer, to be more beautiful, because we believe it will bring us more ‘happiness’. We always want more.
We see everyone else posting their wonderful, perfect lives on social media and we want what they’ve got . “They look happier than me.” The trouble is that the very wanting of more positive stuff all the time, is actually a negative experience for most of us. The more you pursue feeling better all the time, the more you highlight what you don’t have and the less satisfied you feel. The slimmer you want to be, the more you reinforce how overweight you are. The more you want to be rich, the more poor and worthless you feel.
Pursuing stuff you desire reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. This is a perpetual loop that makes you feel less happy. Life is full of regrets, failures, losses, pain, hardship and suffering.
No one ever lived a life without these, to some degree. It’s life. Life is painful and hard. It’s meant to be. Your problems will never stop, they will merely get exchanged or upgraded.
So can happiness ever be a real thing that we can seek and find? Is it waiting magically in a box for you, around the corner? I don’t believe so. Happiness is completely intangible, impossible to define or measure. It’s also completely subjective, and the stimuli we need to be happy are also subjective. What makes me happy might not make you happy at all!
If you see Happiness as a ‘problem to solve’, then that would make happiness an activity, an action, and therefore that would make the seeking of happiness a constant work in progress, would it not?
It’s up to you, of course, to find out what makes you happy. You know it when you feel it. Do not rely on anyone else for your happiness. Be mindful that achieving your goal will be a great achievement but it is possible it might not deliver the ‘happiness’ you seek.
Reaching a goal usually requires a struggle. Even happiness can require a struggle It’s easy to want the reward at the end but not be interested in the struggle it requires to get there. But our struggles determine our successes. Our problems lead us to our happiness. We simply upgrade or exchange our problems through life, along the way.
What are you willing to struggle for? If you want to lose weight there will be a struggle of some kind that you have to endure to get there. Some people are more up for the struggle than others and they are the ones that will lose more weight.
Your problems will never disappear, so dont kid yourself that they will. They may change, but they will never disappear. The joy of life is how we cope with or manage our problems. And successes.
As human beings, we tend to take the path of least resistance, the comfortable route through life. But your most amazing results will happen when you move out of your comfort zone and into uncharted territory. Because it’s in these unmapped areas, that your amazing inner power lies, because you have never pushed yourself before to find out what you are capable of. And I promise you, it’ s more than you thought possible.
Ultimately you are the only one who has the power to get you to where you want to be. But be careful, you also have the power to prevent it. And of course, be careful what you wish for.
And here is the big news flash….You are the biggest obstacle in your life. You are the biggest obstacle you will ever face, it’s yourself. Your happiness will not rest on some method you use to make money.
Your lack of happiness is not due to a lack of tools, or training. Or lack of knowledge. You can get all of these things. And you can get most of them for free. Your biggest battle will be against yourself. Sticking it out long after you’ve had enough. Getting back up after you’ve fallen down. Only to fall down again. Fall down 8 times. Then get up a 9th time.
You are the only person who will get you the life you’re after, the happiness you seek. You are the only person who will also get in the way. The biggest battle you’ll face is yourself. The life you have lived up until this point, this moment, the thoughts you have had, and all your experiences have created behaviour that could be blocking your path to your happiness, your success or your goal.
Your success will be down to your attitude and your state of mind.
Lives, are won and lost in your heads.
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