Happiness Is

Happiness Is

  Happiness is: A) Having everything your heart desires. B) Being richer than King Midas so you can buy anything you desire. C) Having lots of friends , being popular, and having the best looking guy/girl on your arm to call your own. D) What you make of what life hands you regardless.

  If you answered A, B, or C I suspect you’re not really happy at all and here’s why. If I handed you everything you said you desired, once you had them you would quickly become bored with them and desire something that you didn’t have yet. You would always desire not only what you didn’t have but also what you couldn’t have. If you said that being rich would make you happy, I suspect that too would be fleeting. Of course you might think it would be easier to be happy sitting on a gigantic yacht than in a dinky apartment with no furniture wondering how you were going to pay the light bill this month. If having money maid you happy, then why do you think that millionaires who have more money than they could possibly spend continue to strive to make more money? And many of them don’t seem to be happy at all. They have the same bouts of loneliness, infidelity, depression, alcoholism, drug addictions, etc. as the rest of the population. Having money does not make them immune from such things. So perhaps they are not as happy as you might think. And if you said that being popular, having lots of friends, and being paired with Mr. or Ms. Right would do the trick for you, think again. Look at all the celebrities that have all the above and still go awry. Happiness isn’t found in things like money, possessions, fame, popularity, and even having a significant other. If you depend on any of these for your happiness you will most likely be disappointed in the long run and end up miserable. As long as you think of happiness as something external you will not be truly happy.  

  Our society does not want you to be happy. Happy people are not good consumers. Our society tries to program you to always want something “better” than what you have now. You like your shampoo and it works fine. Okay, but now you can get your shampoo that is “new and improved” for just a little bit more money and it will work even better leaving your hair cleaner and shinier than before. And when you get comfortable with that, then we want you to try this new and improved product that’s even better – for slightly more money of course. Same thing with electronics and any product you can think of. And it never ends. So you have to work harder to be able to buy the new stuff and maybe your spouse has got to get out there now and work too so you can afford all the new gadgets that the family just has to have. Then when that’s not enough, you have to work more and more hours and maybe even get a second job. Then you start buying everything on credit and have to put in even more hours just to pay off the credit cards. Surely you can’t be happy using that old stuff? After all your neighbors and friends are all using the new gizmo and look how happy they are. And it goes on and on. As a society, we don’t seem to be very happy and it is obviously by design. As individuals most of us aren’t too happy and it’s not all that surprising considering the severe amount of brainwashing that we are all subjected to on a daily basis.

  I have often been criticized for not being ambitious and being perfectly content with what I already have. I came to realize a long time ago that I would never be rich and that things didn’t necessarily bring you the happiness as advertised on TV. As long as you have a list of things that you desire, you will never be happy. Because once you get something on that list, you will just add something else to the list and will never be satisfied. Instead of putting everything you desire on the list, place there all the good things you already have and then practice being content with those. You will find you spend many more days in a happier state than you ever did before.  Happiness has nothing to do with external things. Happiness is all about internal peace of mind. In our noisy society, that is awash with rampant materialism and consumerism, such peace is indeed a very difficult thing to achieve. But it is possible. You just have to learn to tune out the noise.