What is happiness in the first place?
What does happiness really mean to us?
In actual fact your level of happiness is directly related to your level of awareness. As your level of awareness increases the intensity of your “ego” at some stage will start decreasing thus, increasing your happiness level. When our ego is high it means we have too many personal rules that could easily be violated by anybody; e.g. “I do not accept anybody yelling at me”, “I do not like the way they look at me” etc. You can think of it, as if you are walking around wearing this heavy metal uniform used to be worn by soldiers during medieval times but because you have been wearing them for so long, you do not feel their effect. As we are progressing we shed/ drop things we do not need. We can however improve our happiness if we manage to change our belief system and our way of thinking by becoming more aware of how we are operating and what we are doing wrong. In essence you are increasing your level of awareness
EXPLANATIONS OF OUR BELIEFS AND OUR WAY OF THINKING
The following are intended to provide inside information, where we are going wrong. We have to understand, how we are treating ourselves and how we are behaving in different scenarios
We have to distinguish the difference between the temporary happiness and the long term overall happiness. Temporary happiness come from situations like, when we get a new car or house, when we go out and have fan, when we have success on our tests etc. How long these feelings of happiness last?
Belief system
Let us start from the beginning. We believe that happiness comes from what we picture in our minds, as to what we really need to do or not do in order for us to acquire these nice feelings. These desires are not real in the first place because they are not coming from our real self. These beliefs and desires could have been engraved in us from society, from our teachers, from our parents’ requirements etc. For example society rules states that, “if you want to be successful you have to have a high paying job, nice house and expensive car”. What happens if you are an artist and you do not make enough money? This is exactly where we are going wrong; because we measure success based on others people’s opinions and rules. Our true success and pleasures comes from deep inside of us, from our soul and heart and not from the external world. Start looking where the true happiness is actually located. You can think of it, similar to the story, where this person lost his key in the basement of his house but because there was no light there, he went outside to find his keys because there was light there. Is there any chance for him to find the keys? Is there a chance for you to find happiness outside of yourself?
Feelings
You have to realize that the material things that we are constantly chasing after, are coming from our “ego” subconsciously and are not really what we are after. These “ego” driven desires that are coming up is because we are after the feeling we think we will get, when we acquire these material things. For examples it is not the filthy paper money that we are after, but the FEELING of security they provide us. It is not the new car we are after, but the pleasure FEELING, of “importance” that it provides us. This is true for any desire. Just check all your desires and find what are the actual feelings, provided behind each of these “needed” materials.
Way of thinking
Happiness is a state of mind. As we were growing up, we kept saying to ourselves that we will be happy, when we finish elementary school, but when you finish elementary school then something else happens, then you say that “when I finish high school I will be happy”, then again something else happens, then you say “when I get a job then I will be happy”, then something else happens. Etc. eventually we will get old and we never experience the true happiness that we deserve.
How do we treat and feel about money? The more money we have the more money we will spend. The money we are having will never ever be enough. No matter how much money we have we will always be striving for more because there will always be a good reason for it. Even the billionaires who have no need for any money, yet they are after them in order to get into Forbes magazine as the “richest men of the world”. Even all of us, are doing the same thing. Let me explain by using an example from my personal life. When I got my first job right after college, and I got my first week’s pay check of $700 “Wow”, I said to myself “where am I going to spend all these money?”. To cut the long story short, within 6 months the money I was making, were barely enough to meet my needs. Why? Because I change the image I had for myself and the “cheap” car that I had, did not fit my new image any more, the clothes I was wearing were not good enough because they were not brand names, the apartment was living did not have any facilities etc.
Another killer for our happiness is when we look to find our happiness outside of ourselves and depend on other people opinions or things to make us happy; i.e. we do not have to wait for someone to tell us that you are great, that they love us etc. in order to feel good inside of us. We do not have to wait until it is Christmas time before we can change our feelings about ourselves. Everyday can be a Christmas day.
SUMMARY
Happiness is inside of us. It is the direct communication we have with ourselves because no matter where we go we cannot leave ourselves behind. A good example is Elvis. He had all the money in the world, all the fame that could meet anybody’s dreams and yet he was miserable ending up with drugs in order to change how he felt. You do not need drugs or alcohol in order to change the way you feel and be happy.
Happiness is learning to manage your state, your way of thinking, learning what things make you happy and what things don’t. Just being aware of these items alone, will improve your level of happiness.
We have to learn to treat ourselves with love and compassion, the same way we treat our children. We can easily forgive and still love our kid no matter what they do. However we do NOT do the same to ourselves? If we check and see how we all treat ourselves when we make a mistake, we would not even think about treating our enemies the same way.
Your happiness will not come to you, it only comes from you. No person or thing will make you happy unless you decide to be happy
Dalai Lama “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves”
Shakespeare once said “I cried when I had no shoes, but I stopped crying when I saw a man without legs. Life is full of Blessings, sometimes we don’t value it.”
We do not have to lose a leg before we start appreciating our ability to walk. We would be willing to give anything in order for us to regain our ability to walk again.
It's crucial to become aware for all the blessing life is offering to you. Find all of the things you are really grateful for; i.e. “we are not living in war zone”, “we are not refugees”, “we are healthy”, “we can always have enough food on our table” etc.
Tony Robbins “The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself”
- How can I learn from this?
- How have other people succeeded?
- How can I break this down into manageable chunks?
- Who can I learn from or ask for advice?
- Where is the opportunity in this tough situation?
- How does this serve me?
- How is staying in my current situation a disservice to me?