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 believe that finding happiness is based on finding something else they want. In my experience as a personal coach, no one has ever found long term happiness by achieving another goal. Ultimately, to find happiness is to look within.
In other words, happiness is an inside job. The key to finding happiness is to understand that happiness is a choice and not the result. If happiness can be found as the result of an acquisition, meeting a goal, or having anything, then a person’s happiness will always be subject to something else.
Here is something to remember: one definition of happiness is the absence of an opposite emotion whether it is pain, sadness or something else. If these emotions are never experienced how can happiness be experienced? Bad times allow you to appreciate good times. Hunger allows you to appreciate food. Sadness allows you to appreciate and experience happiness.
We can also define 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.
“If I had” scenarios all follow the same flawed reasoning; that is happiness is based on external circumstances.
If you base your happiness on external circumstances, you will continuously fail to find happiness. Will there not always be another external circumstance? Another dollar, another job, another house, or another partner”?
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?
Go ahead and accept that life is perfect as it is and that our lives are the sum total of everything that has happened to this instant. Then and 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 famous saying: Don’t worry – be happy!
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Miami Phillips teaches usable tools and methods for creating happiness and success in business and life. Get the self coaching tools you need to help you find happiness at www.MiamiPhillips.com
* Consider taking a moment to share some of the ways you go about experiencing happiness — you can do so by using the comments section below (it might help someone else). And remember… It’s your life, LIVE BIG! Josh Hinds