No Limits | The Freedom Blog™
What is Happiness?
Written
by Steven Griggs | stevengriggs.com
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness
consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
Albert Camus
“Even
a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would
lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things
as they come along with patience and equanimity.”
Carl
Jung
“People spend a lifetime searching for
happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions,
even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is
the only place they ever needed to search was within.”
Romana L. Anderson
If
someone asks you if you are happy, what do you say? What is your definition of
happiness?
Can
you honestly say you’re happy? And when you say it, do you really believe it?
I
think for most people the answer tends to be tentative or conditional. It’s
almost as if we’re afraid to say unequivocally, I’m happy!
This
is not to say there aren’t many very happy people, I’m sure there are.
I’m
just asking you to watch how you answer this question. Watch and see if there
is any hesitation or a need to explain or clarify.
I
think when most people think of happiness, they view it as a destination or a
place somewhere in the future. “When I’m rich then I’ll be happy”. “When I meet
the person of my dreams, then I’ll be happy”. When I have the right job, the
right house, the right friends, the right car, etc., it goes on and on.
Get
these items and you will be happy.
It’s
always conditional.
We
been programed and conditioned by our culture to always look for happiness as something “out there”, a set of circumstances that will bring happiness.
I
believe that real happiness is to be found moment to moment, in brief experiences.
This
could be a series of experiences or it could just be brief moment
of it here and there, but I don’t think there is any extended, never ending experience
of bliss.
It’s
just not the nature of our experience here on this planet.
We
face challenges.
This
is part of our journey. If everything was totally blissful and perfect, why
would we need to be here? What would be the point?
Personally
I try not to define the future or regret or mourn the past. Any time you are looking
forward or looking back, you are not looking at now.
You
are missing out on right now.
Try
to be here, right now, in this moment. Really pay attention to everything in
the here and now.
If
you can capture the joy and beauty and irony and humor in the small everyday
moments, I believe you will experience happiness.
How
do you find those moments? You pay attention, you are appreciative and open hearted.
You try to embrace every experience with all your senses. You try to really “be
there” and be thankful that you are.
Find
those moments. You’ll know them when you feel them.
This
is the real treasure that we call happiness.
