Ah, the difficult one. This one will be supplemented but here is what I have. I read a quote once that said “your conditions for happiness are the chains of your suffering.” Wow. All too often, we think in conditional statements (If X, then Y), that If I [buy this, become that, get this, get that), THEN Y = I will be happy. But we are terrible forecasters. We either 1) dont get, buy, become the thing (thus we could never be happy) or 2) we get the X, but dont become happy. We may have pleasure initially, but you will move on and your beaten up tennis shoes you have that you thought would make you happy when you bought them, that sit beat-up somewhere prove the point. By the time we get what we want, we probably want something else. That means happiness isn’t a thing to get – its a thing in and of itself – To get happy, be happy.
I once saw on the internet, a person allegedly on their death bed who was taking questions. Someone asked the author, “how does one find happiness?” The author replied, “conscious appreciation.” I have “conscious appreciation” framed in my living room. Not passive appreciation, very much actively thinking and actively appreciative: I am fed, I am warm, I do have so many blessings of laughter, family, love, and things so easily could be worse. To be happy later, be happy now. If you dont chose it, you can’t find it. To be happy, be it. Just like smiling – we smile when we are happy but we can also smile to become happy. We too easy get trapped in the regrets of the past or fear of the future, be in the now, look around and be grateful, smile, and be happy.
For a surgically precise reiteration of the same – check out Ben Felix – another treasure chest of content: