In general happiness is what we search for throughout our every day life. If it makes us happy we tend to attach on to it. It can come in the form of food, a hobby, a goal, or even another person. A lot of obstacles get in the way of happiness from all of the things we attach to. We end up in pain, suffering, anger, hatred, and even depression. What people don't realize is being happy in a given moment is not true happiness. It is just like taking a drug to make us temporarily happy. When someone is truly a happy it starts with understanding who we are and finding solutions to all the problems within ourselves.
The first thing we need to understand is how our body operates. If we don't know how it operates we can't keep it at its top performance. It is like a car that is not working properly. We have to understand the main problems with it and how to fix it. We take our car to a service station and have a mechanic work on it and explain to us the problem. Then the mechanic will explain the best solution to making the car operate at its best performance. Our body is no different. We need to know how it works and understand where the weaknesses are so we can operate at our peak performance. And the key is if we don't want to see a therapist or nutritionist we can simply observe how our own body responds to different things we eat and also how we react( logical or emotional) in given situations so we can take notes to understand our own self.
Eating proper nutrition is what keeps our engine running. We should not focus on what others are eating. The only focus should be is how our own body responds with different foods. I went to a Nathuropathic doctor and took a food allergy test. I am allergic to mushrooms, bananas, and anything with brewers yeast in it ( so yes I am allergic to alcohol ). I used to eat a lot of stuff with mushrooms and loved bananas. Soon as I found out I was allergic to them I cut them out of my diet along with alcohol and my body began to transform from lethargic to more high energy. Without that tired feeling, I also became a happier person because I felt healthier. Doesn't mean people have to take a food allergy test, but we can just take notes on different foods we eat and see how the body responds to each food. If we can take out the foods that our body rejects its a step in the right direction to true happiness.
I really didn't think about how my mind works until I played poker. I not only observed the way I reacted, but the way others reacted when they played. It was the first time I actually focused on how I thought and others thought because that was the strategy to winning at poker. I realized I had a lot of things I need to improve with myself. My biggest weakness was being to competitive. It was the roots of my down fall when it came to my brains thought process from working at its optimal level. I would grow angry and start to make terrible decisions. I realized this is not just for poker, but also for life in general. We have a logical side of our brain that thinks logically through decisions and we have a emotional side that makes irrational decisions from our emotions. So the key is to observe when we are being irrational and figure out what is triggering it. If we can eliminate the irrational thinking we can make decisions at a peak performance.
So what triggers all of this anger inside of us? It is our competitive nature. We see competition every where. Its on pictures, TV, News, even just flipping through a magazine and even over a job. We all make the terrible mistake of comparing ourselves to other people. It can cause us to grow jealous, angry, and even depression that starts a conflict with this other person that can end in war. What we have to accept is we all have strengths and weaknesses. Some people are more attractive, smarter, work harder, have more experience, more fortunate, healthier etc. We each have more gifts or talent then other people in certain aspects of life and vice versa. For example, if we want to be the next Michael Jordan ( best basketball player in history) and can't reach that goal in our life time, we live sad and depressed and it not only effects us, but the people that truly love us for who we are. Instead of being focused on other people and in competition with them, the only thing we should focus on is on our own self. How can I improve at basketball within my own self. We have so many thing we need work on with who we are why bother focusing on others? If we can't master who we are how can we guide someone else in the right direction through life? It can be quite humbling, but being honest and writing down not only our strengths, but admitting to our weaknesses is the start of our journey to a life of happiness.
So now that we need to focus on our own self instead of competing with others to find true happiness, nothing can stop us right? Wrong. I sometimes fall to the conspiracy theory concept, but I feel governments or elites want us to be distracted so we never improve on who we are. We are so busy in competition, we go into a big circle of constant arguing that leads no where. So many exciting things on TV, News, Internet, etc that we begin to start to focus on other things then our own self. If I had one choice to master anything in my life time it would be with myself. I have to live with this body god has given me. So why not work on mastering it to work at its optimal level? We have seen people do things that blow our mind. But reality is they constantly focus on improving who they are and not focusing on others.
So what keeps us from all these wonderful distractions. It starts with using a calendar. I use google calendar. I map out my entire day hr by hr what I am going to do for the full day. By following a calendar our life is not as hectic. That TV show we want to watch, we fill in around our day instead of it distracting us from our daily duties. When we plan out our day and our brain begins to follow the daily routine, it teaches our mind to focus on what needs to be done. A lot of the most successful people use a calendar to map out their day so distractions don't interrupt their daily goals.
The most important thing for me to put in my calendar is at least 30 minutes of working on myself. We spend so much time helping family, friend and even our own pets we deserve some one on one time with ourselves to become better people. It sounds selfish, but its not just for us its to be a better person for the people around us. If we don't work on our own self, life can go down hill fast just as a car if we don't have it serviced. I think about situations I could of handled better that day. What ways I can improve on some of the mistakes I made. Over time, I reduce wasted time and my daily routines run more smoothly and efficient from just taking time to observe myself for the day. The smallest improvement made on a daily basis can go a long way throughout our lifetime. By focusing on how our own body operates and improving on who we are instead of competing with others, we work to the goal of mastering who we are which leads to true happiness not just for us, but also for the people we truly love.
Pictures:
Happy kid- BBC
Engine- Visual Dictionary Online
Food Allergy- Jamaica Hospital
Phil Galfond- YouTube
Gift of Competition- Michael R. Blumberg
Calendar- March 2017 Calendar