“If I could only figure this out, I think I could [find happiness->]” my friend said during a recent conversation. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last that I hear this statement.
Too often people believe that finding happiness is as simple as finding something else they want. In my experience, no one has ever found long term happiness by achieving another goal. Ultimately, to find happiness is to invest the effort look within yourself.
In other words, happiness is completely an inside job. The most important piece to finding happiness is to comprehend happiness is a personal choice and not the result of an experience. If all happiness could be found as the result of an acquisition, meeting a goal, or having anything, then a person’s happiness would always be subject to something else.
Remember this: one definition of happiness is simply the absence of an opposite emotion whether it is pain, sadness or something else. If the opposite emotions are never experienced then happiness can never be experienced either. Think about it like this: bad times allow you to appreciate good times; hunger allows you to appreciate food; and sadness allows you to appreciate and experience happiness.
The dictionary defines happiness as enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction or joy.
“I’ll be happy when” is statement commonly heard when discussing happiness.
- When I get a nice house, I’ll be happy.
- I’ll be happy when I retire.
- If I had more money, I’d be happy.
‘If I had’ scenarios all follow the same flawed reasoning; that is happiness is based on external circumstances.
If you base your happiness on external circumstances, you will continuously fail to find happiness. Will there not always be another external circumstance? Another dollar, another job, another house, or another partner”?
We must find our happiness somewhere else. Find happiness within yourself. We have been given everything we need to be happy.
Allow yourself to choose happiness. If life was perfect would you be happy?
Life is perfect because we create it with our choices. Since we can create life, we can create
happiness – and how much better can it get?
If you can accept that life is perfect as it is and that our lives are the sum total of everything that has happened to this instant, then you can accept the joy and happiness
you deserve and they work toward creating the life you want – and be happy in the doing of that task.
I realize that this concept is very difficult for some to accept. However, the alternative to bein g happy now is to spend the rest of our lives seeking happiness as if
happiness was an item to be bought or found.
It’s not. Just remember the famous saying: Don’t worry – be happy!
