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Happiness is the new self-help drug.
We all want it, strive for it, and feel depressed when we don’t feel it. I know I have watched happiness slip through my fingers time and again leaving me feeling frustrated and ineffective for not being able to sustain it.
Not unlike love, happiness eludes and changes form as soon as we think we’ve got a sense of what it is.
As you know from most of my previous writing or through working with me that I am highly focused and passionate about generating a sense of meaning in life as opposed to happiness.
I have found both personally and professionally that happiness is not sustainable, and that the suffering that comes from the search for happiness outweighs the pleasure it offers when found.
While I appreciate the extensive research being done on the topic of happiness in the field of psychology, it can sometimes feel like happiness has become the dangling carrot in the maze of self-fulfillment.
In your own life you have probably come to believe that if you aren’t happy then your unhappy. This is a dangerous form of black and white thinking that leaves you wondering why you can’t get on the happiness train that everyone else seems to be on.
What you are calling unhappy may either be dissatisfaction with current circumstances, or more shockingly contentment.
The bar of what we expect to feel on a day to day basis has risen so high that we don’t even know what it feels like to just be satisfied with what we have.
Here are some of the ways I suggest you begin to relate to your own happiness:
Pursue happiness as an ongoing goal, but focus on the things that bring you meaning along with the happiness.
When you do have moments or periods of happiness, don’t cling to it. Observe it and note it like you would any other state of feeling that passes through.
Avoid attaching any particular situation or event to your happiness. Happiness with condition is even more elusive than happiness as a permanent state of being.
Connect your happiness with your heart. Think of it as energy that flows between you and the world.
Your happiness is not a measure of your self-worth. It has been connected to a greater sense of wellbeing, but being happy doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone else
One of the most important reminders about happiness that you will want to hang on to is that no one can MAKE you happy.
You may feel happier when you are with certain people, but this is more a result of the connection and meaning you are experiencing.
When you attach your happiness to others in this way you end up blaming others or the world for your unhappiness.
Think of happiness as your fair weather friend. Drop expectation, and be grateful when she visits so you can enjoy her company before she disappears once again.
If you’re not dependent on happiness, you won’t feel lost without it, and you’ll come to realize that what you have been experiencing as “unhappiness” is actually life.
