We all could use more happiness in our lives, and yet how often do we end up missing the mark and wondering what happened? Or worse, feeling resentment over the things we didn't get, the kids and spouses and coworker that misbehave and cost us our sanity and happiness.
What if there was another way? What if we could be happier, without giving up on our dreams, or depending on other people to "behave"? Read on to find out more!
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“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis
Happiness, it’s something we all want more of in our lives. And yet, have you ever found yourself thinking something like this: If only my partner would just… If only my coworker would… If my kid would just….
… I would finally be happy.
Or how about one of these:
If only I were…. thinner, richer, prettier... If only I …. didn’t work here, lived somewhere else... If only I had…. A newer car, a bigger house...
…I’d be so much happier.
And before we start I want to get one thing straight with you:
I want you to have all of those things, too. And I think you *can* have all those things, I do.
Desiring things, people, relationships and experiences — imagining how it would feel to get them, and then stretching ourselves to actually achieve them? One of life’s joys! So I’m not asking you to settle in any way for a life that’s less than what you want or to give up on achieving your dreams.
And, you aren’t wrong for thinking that getting those things would make you feel pretty good, maybe even amazing. …For a minute. A week. A month. Maybe even a year if you’re really lucky... Right before you’d start needing and wanting, and craving the next big thing.
But happy? Content where you are? Satisfied with the general direction of your life even when you aren’t achieving the next thing at this exact moment?
Not likely.
Does getting the things we’ve been craving ever really make us happy? Or do they simply give us a bit of pleasure? Pleasure, that hit of dopamine — that momentary emotional high we get right before we inevitably return right back to our normal state of being and living. Because no matter how big the new house, or how great the new relationship, it too eventually becomes just normal, and no longer gives us that big emotional push of a adrenaline and dopamine.
Pleasure is important to our lives, necessary even. Without those rising blips in our emotions, our lives would seem pretty flat. The problem comes when we try to live in those highs all the time, and call that happiness. Because it can’t be done. Those kinds of highs, nice as they are, aren’t meant to be lasting. If you were always just as enthused about the new house as you were on day one of buying it, you wouldn’t desire the next big thing. And wanting the next big thing, is what will get you to grow and move forward. Pleasure and desire are meant to cycle into our life, create a big wave of effort that culminates in a high of pleasure, and then diminishes. So the next desire can come in.
Pleasure is cyclical, it comes and then it goes, over and over again.
Happiness in contrast, is how we feel about our lives when we aren’t on the brink of achieving something.
And our happiness is largely determined by our estimation of how lovable our life is when we aren’t busy achieving those heights, when it’s just normal. This kind of joy — this quiet contentment with our lives, this generosity in loving our normal, imperfect, messy, sometimes boring, daily lives is the happiness that can buffer us, when pleasure isn’t happening —
…When the highs of the moment inevitably fade ...when we miss the mark in achieving something, ...when misfortune falls on us and life takes an unexpected turn.
It is this quiet happiness that can save our sense of good humor, our sense of hope, and even our sanity during dark, hard or even just dull times.
Happiness is about loving our lives as they stand right now. And it is, largely, a decision we are in control of. We can decide to extend love and compassion, and gratitude for as much as we can in our lives, or we can decide to withhold it. We can decide to use it as cudgel to punish ourselves for not achieving. For not being perfect enough. We can decide we cannot let ourselves be happy until we have achieved XYZ. But the thing is…
Happiness is never earned. You can’t “achieve” yourself to it.
Even the thinnest, richest woman in the world ( with the perfect kids, perfect home and the best husband ) still at the end of the day, goes home to just as normal a life as anyone does. Life is still as boring, messy, imperfect, & heartbreaking at times for the upper echelons as it is everyone, everywhere else. As one rich high society dame once proclaimed:
“Money can buy a lot of pleasure. What it can’t buy is happiness.”
Where pleasures make us strive and work hard to achieve them — creating obstacles in our way, like people who seem unwilling, places that are just out of reach, accounts that don’t quite have the funds — obstacles we have stretch to overcome… Happiness, in contrast, isn’t dependent on other things or people, it is very much all up to you. The only obstacle to overcome is an unwillingness to see the good in ourselves, to the see the beauty in our own backyard, and to pay attention to rightness of our lives as they unfold. Where there are gatekeepers and obstacles in achieving pleasure: people, places, circumstances that can temporarily keep you from getting what your heart most desires….
There is no gatekeeper to happiness. No one can force you to be happy. And nothing can *make* you feel it.
Happiness, contentment, is something we have to build for ourselves.
How do you do it? We’ll talk about simple ways to do just that next week, so stay tuned …
And with that, I’m off to go enjoy my little, beautiful life!
But I am wishing you so much happiness ( and pleasure ) in yours!
PS. A great way to get started in loving your life as it now? Is by filling it with tiny daily pleasures. Interested in getting started early on doing just that? Check out my bestselling e-book:
"55 Simple Pleasures to wake up your Ordinary Days" ......it's available on the website, and it's a great place to start if you want find more happiness in your life!
You can purchase yours here:
See you all next Week!
All my love,
Desiree Sommer
Desirée Sommer is a former Interior Designer & Writer dedicated to helping those around her to Beautify, Style & make their lives Fun again! She happily resides in the rural beauty of Idaho with her pet pooch Bree, where she gets to take epic hikes, and plot her next big travel escapade. Her favorite things include traveling, fil eam & anything French or Italian. Oh, and dancing! Always dancing!
Ready for more ways to find Happiness & Joy?