What exactly is happiness, and why are we all trying to pursue it?
Well, happiness can mean a lot of different things to different people. For some, it means professional success; for others, a rock-solid relationship. To others, happiness is financial security. I’ve met a rare few for whom happiness involves nothing but getting up in the morning and breathing the air. The one thing I know for sure is that happiness is something we have come to both seek and hide from, sometimes on the same day, and often, in the same breath.
We learned as kids that the forefathers of this country thought it was important enough to include the “Pursuit of Happiness” as part of our Rights in the Declaration of Independence.
And get this. Originally, the “hap” in happiness meant “chance, fortune, or luck.” And the term “pursue” initially meant to “follow with hostile intent.”
So, I’m guessing that means that our forefathers essentially consented for us to hostilely pursue something that transpires outside of ourselves beyond our control! Is that the American Dream?
Now, I’m sure that’s not what they had in mind, but it does shed some light on why so many of us grew up thinking happiness was something that we might be lucky to have, something that “happened” to us passively, not something we could choose or create. It makes sense, in that light, that we may have learned to resent those people who we perceived had the very things we thought would make us happy.
Happiness and disappointment have always seemed to go hand in hand.
At least, so we were conditioned to believe.
Many of us have learned, over the years, that those external things –jobs, finances, the economy, homes, cars, gadgets and fashion-never had the power or capacity to make anybody happy. Not in a lasting way. Not from in the inside-out. Truth be told, even family and friends have no permanence in this life.
So what is this elusive happiness, anyway?
Happiness is an “Inside-Out” job
Here’s my take. Happiness is a state of being which lasts beyond any instant gratification an external object or circumstance can offer us. In other words, happiness is an “Inside-Out” job. The pursuit of happiness essentially involves asking ourselves fundamental questions so that we can focus on the core of what truly gives us joy and peace within ourselves. These questions are ones which nobody else can answer for us.
Ultimately, our happiness is directly tied into our self-awareness.
It’s about giving yourself permission to seek comfort and joy in your life even in the midst of daily challenges and the inevitable ebb and flow of life.
The process of experiencing and gift of knowing of real happiness occurs through:
- neutralizing guilt, anger, sadness and anxiety by choosing to allow what is to be
- choosing to surrender to reality by, and this is a biggie, not resisting your own obstacles
Resistance to happiness is our biggest roadblock to attaining it.
You may have read some version of this ancient truism: What we resist persists.
Here’s how it works. We think we want to be happy, and yet we choose partners who put us down, spend more than we have, if you will, keep walking into the fire and burn ourselves over and over again, in an unconscious pattern of limiting ourselves and…holding back from our true potential.
We say we are happy, but we’re caught in addictive behavior, behind the eight ball, living in a blur, with no sense of control over our own lives.
We admit we aren’t happy, but swear we are working on it, and yet, everything we talk about and act on is negative, bubbling up from our stories of deficiency we keep telling ourselves like a broken record.
None of our “strategies” for finding happiness are actually making us happy.
Because they are strategies. They are defensive, external tactics we grasp at like shorter and shorter straws. They keep us running, scratching our heads (or banging them), and wondering why we don’t deserve to be happy, know how to be happy, or keep us blaming others and circumstances for cheating us of our birthright.
Happiness doesn’t have to be so complicated!
Here’s another big monkey wrench in the machinery: Many of us have been raised to believe that the pursuit of happiness is selfishly wrong. We have learned to feel that thinking about ourselves is one-sided so we don’t spend enough time ensuring that some of our basic needs are met.
We stumble into moments of happiness by default, and experience a pendulum-like effect between happiness and other emotions.
The question then is, how can you truly offer your best to others when you don’t know or do not allow yourself to know what your “best” is?
The Golden Rule Works Backwards
How we can expect others to treat us well if we do not give ourselves permission to treat ourselves well?
We’d all agree that it’s important for us to live in harmony with ourselves. So, how can we bring comfort to others when we are uncomfortable? Feelings are our barometer as to our internal state of being. They are clues as to whether we are on the right path to being who we are. The pursuit of happiness is about allowing ourselves to be authentically “us,” and permitting others to enjoy who we are.
Do you hear another theme emerging here?
I’m talking about acceptance.
Happiness, at its very core, is about self-acceptance.
5 Keys to Our Happiness
1. Accept those things which we cannot change.
2. Choose to affect those things which we can change.
3. Realize that we have the power of affecting our perspective through our thoughts, actions and emotional responses.
4. Cultivate a sense of gratitude for what we have been given, who we have been given to share it with and for our toughest challenges which have shaped us and made us strong in our weakness.
5. Use your gifts. Happiness is nurtured when we use our natural abilities, divine inspirations, and courage to act on what we know to share it with the world. This is the ultimate power from within.
Where do we “find” happiness?
Rhonda ____________, author of the acclaimed The Secret says, “The shortcut to anything you want in your life is to be and feel happy now. Set your thoughts and frequency on happiness.” Being happy is a moment to moment decision. Regardless of what happens we can choose to look for the gift.
We can honestly discover happiness in the small moments and big events of life. Opportunities for us to boost our personal happiness are all around us. It depends on the filter through you choose to see your life, yourself and others. The great French author Marcel Proust said “we must see with new eyes, instead of changing the whole landscape to suit our vision.”
Think about it. Some of the happiest people on earth are the ones with the least bragging rights. Stop thinking of happiness as something you’ll get when you cross the finish line. Start here, right now. Claim your happiness as something you’ve already known-as a living breathing energy already alive in you.
That way, you start from abundance-so there’s nothing to pursue.
From there, true happiness grows, and never stops. UHL
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This issue of Ultimate Health Living serves as the June/July edition. I’m in the process of finishing my new book Living Inside-Out: A Revolutionary Approach to Creating the Life You Want-Today! This book features sixteen of my favorite experts including best-selling authors Brian Biro; Barbara De Angelis, PhD; Jim Karas; David Katz, MD; Lisa Nichols; Bob Proctor; Marci Shimoff and others as well as the foreword my Jack Canfield.
Living Inside-Out will be released nationwide in March 2009 by Morgan James Publishing. This will be wrapped up in the next month and I will be back to providing monthly issues of Ultimate Health Living and our Ask the Expert teleseminar series.
Check-out below an article by this month featured expert and my mentor Jack Canfield-Visualize and Affirm Your Desired Outcomes-as well as the Healthy Living Tips-Stages of Acceptance.
Eddie Miller, America’s Ultimate Potential Coach, is founder and CEO of one of the nation’s premier personal development organizations, the Ultimate Health Group, an author, performance coach and motivational speaker. If you would like to learn more about creating a healthy, balanced and prosperous life from the Inside-Out, visit www.eddiemiller.com.
