A close friend said' "If I could only figure this out, I think I could find happiness." I have heard this before and will hear it again I am sure.
Many people want to believe that finding happiness is all about finding something else they want. Not many have ever found long term happiness by achieving another goal. The answer to finding happiness is to look within.
In other words, happiness is completely an inside job. The most important piece to finding happiness is to comprehend happiness is a choice and not the result of an experience. If all happiness could be found as the result of an acquisition, meeting a goal, or having anything, then a person's happiness would always be subject to something else.
Remember this: one definition of happiness is simply the absence of an opposite emotion whether it is pain, sadness or something else. If the opposite emotions are never experienced then happiness can never be experienced either. Think about it like this: bad times allow you to appreciate good times; hunger allows you to appreciate food; and sadness allows you to appreciate and experience happiness.
The dictionary defines happiness as enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction or joy.
How often do you hear... "I'll be happy when"? When I get that job, I'll be happy. I'll be happy when I find a life partner. I'd be happy if I had more money.
These, and all the other "if I had", scenarios are following the same reasoning; that happiness is based on external circumstances.
If you base your happiness on external circumstances, you will continuously fail to find happiness. There will always, always be another external circumstance. There will always be another dollar, another job, another house, or another partner. Better, more, else.
To break this vicious cycle, we must find our happiness somewhere else. That somewhere else is within. We have been given everything we need to be happy.
Allow yourself to choose happiness. If life was perfect would you be happy? Life is perfect because we create it with our choices. Since we can create life, we can create happiness - and how much better can it get?
When we can accept that life is perfect as it is and that our lives are the sum total of everything that has happened to this instant, only then can we accept the joy and happiness we deserve.
I realize that this concept is very difficult for some to accept. However, the alternative to being happy now is to spend the rest of our lives seeking happiness as if happiness was an item to be bought or found.
It's not. Just remember the saying - Don't worry - be happy!