26 Feb A guide to finding happiness…within yourself!
This great article by Gilbert Ross begins with the following "warning"…
Note: this article is about 1,400 words long and takes about five minutes to read. If you want to understand more how to find happiness within yourself then I guess they’re five minutes well spent. The article suggests that we ought to find happiness by discarding certain ‘mental models’ we are used to. More importantly to look within ourselves and seek inner peace through acceptance and other little pearls of wisdom. Enjoy!
If you think your happiness is worth 5 minutes of your time then keep reading…
The quest of finding happiness is possibly the only goal shared among all human beings – past, present or future. Who doesn’t want to find happiness in his or her life? It’s a silent goal nonetheless. We don’t mutter much about it and most of the time it lurks in the deep inner workings of our minds. Curious isn’t it?
I have written before about the odd fact that in the West we spend billions of research dollars & euros into treating mental illnesses with drugs but not much effort goes into understanding the science of happiness or mental well being. This fact alone compels me to write about the subject.
The title of this article is in itself revealing – “how to find happiness within yourself” suggests from the outset that you should look for happiness within yourself and that happiness is generally to be found within. This is also a very curious thing to me. Why are we always trying to find happiness in all kinds of places but hardly ever attempt to find happiness within?
Harry is 67. He lost his wife to cancer almost three years ago now. He saw his daughter pass through a marriage breakdown and divorce. He hardly gets to see his grandchildren because his daughter moved to another city after her divorce. He misses the fishing trips with his brother Joe who also passed away recently. He is relating less and less to a changing hostile world where he is constantly reminded he is an unwanted burden.
Yet there is one major twist to the story. Harry is happy…radiantly happy. How can this happen? I mean if there are people who have passed through all sorts of heartbreaking episodes and hardships but are happy…what’s their story? Conversely if there are people (and lots of them) who have acquired all sorts of merit, possessions and good fortune yet are deeply unhappy…what does this say about finding happiness?
Finding happiness by losing old mental models:
In his interesting talk, Srikumar Rao tells us how one major flaw in the way we live our lives is that we have learnt how to be unhappy rather than how to be happy. We have built certain mental models of our reality and these limit us or lead us astray from finding real happiness. Naturally this leads us to the understanding that finding happiness requires us to unlearn certain things and look for it in different pathways. It requires us to look into flaws in our belief system and change them.
One of these mental models we adopt is the belief that we need to reach a certain goal or outcome to be happy..the so-called ‘if-then model’ (if this happens then I will be happy). For example that we should get a better income, financial freedom, recognition of our work, sexier bodies, satisfying relationships and so on. It’s always something round the corner which needs to happen first before we reach happiness.
I know you have many times got to the realization yourself that it just doesn’t work that way. Once you reach that corner there is always another corner to reach. Happiness is not found in anything outside ourselves. We already have all the material at hand to be happy. It’s a matter of shifting our perspective and beliefs completely…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE