How to be HAPPY
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Image Credit: Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash |
Bruce Lee said "Be happy, but never satisfied."
Such a short quote, but it says so much.
We should be happy right now with what we have.
But, we shouldn't rest on our laurels; we should keep striving for what we want.
But we should be happy.
Why is this important? The "be happy" part?
Because we - as humans - will never stop wanting new things.
Our definition of happiness keeps changing, so the goalposts keep moving.
That means we'll never arrive "there" - the magical place where we're totally happy with what we have with no desire for anything more.
It's perfectly okay that we keep wanting more because that's just human nature; once we've acquired or achieved one thing, we look up and say "Right, what's next?"
But that's why we have to learn how to be happy in the process of acquisition and achievement; because we're always in the process of acquiring or achieving something. If we don't allow ourselves to enjoy what we have while pursuing more, then we'll literally never be happy.
Do you see what I mean?
This wanting, this acquiring and achieving, it's who we are.
We never arrive at the place where we stop wanting something more, so we have to allow ourselves to be happy right now, without whatever the next thing is we say we must have in order to be happy.
If we can't be happy without it, then we won't be happy with it because when we get it, we'll already be looking at the next thing without having paused to enjoy what we just got.
Also - IMPORTANT - the journey is actually the FUN part.
Pursuing things is what makes life fun and interesting. It's not the accomplishment of the goal, it's the journey that makes it all worthwhile.
(I know, I'm sorry - that's such a cliché that you probably cringed.)
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Photo by Chichi Onyekanne on Unsplash |
The reality is, accomplishment is brief; you walk across the stage or cross the finish line. That's only a moment in time in the grand scheme of your life.
But you became a different person on the journey to that stage, that finish line, and that's what's important: who did you become because of the journey?
Life isn't about the finish lines you want to cross, but about what journeys you wish to embark on and who you want to become as a result of the process.
For a long time, I couldn't wrap my head around this idea, and lived in a permanent state of dissatisfaction because I thought "If I let myself be happy with what I have, is that like settling? Does it mean that I'm just going to stop trying?"
No.
Be happy with what you have while happily pursuing more / different / better.
Being happy in the process of getting to the things we want - because we never stop wanting things - is the key to contentment.
At some point we have to say to ourselves "I'm happy right now even though I want more, and I acknowledge that no matter what I accomplish I will always want more, so I will be happy with what I have now, while I purse all the other things I want."
The alternative is to live life believing that happiness is just around the corner, only to find a new corner every time we round the previous one, which means that we never just get to be happy.
And then we might end up totally exasperated and pleading with the Universe, asking "When do I finally get to be happy huh? WHEN?"
Well, now is a good time.
You will never get all your ducks in a row. You'll never have all your t's crossed and i's dotted at the same time. (And if you manage, it will only be for the briefest of moments.)
Attempting to corral life into exactly what you want it to be is often as fruitless an endeavour as pinning jell-o to the ceiling. (Jell-o definitely contains no fruit.)
So sit amidst the messy imperfection of your life and just be happy; be happy with everything that you have, and then go ahead and get more.
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Photo by Senjuti Kundu on Unsplash |
"...neuroscience shows that the act of seeking itself, rather than the goals we realize, is key to satisfaction...
All mammals have this seeking system...wherein dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to reward and pleasure, is also involved in coordinating planning activities.
This means animals are rewarded for exploring their surroundings and seeking new information for survival...
The human desire to seek can help make sense of studies showing that achieving major goals, or even winning the lottery, doesn’t cause long-term changes in happiness. But our drive to look ahead needn’t cause a permanent state of dissatisfaction, as seeking is itself a fulfilling activity...
The world isn’t fixed, it’s always changing, so that means you have to create anew in light of the changes...
The innate human desire to seek means that we can never truly feel that every desire and wish has been met. There will never be an end to the to-do list, future goals and plans, the things we want to achieve and see.
But the fact that we don’t have everything we want is exactly what makes life so fulfilling."
- Olivia Goldhill: Neuroscience confirms that to be truly happy, you will always need something more
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Photo by gaspar zaldo on Unsplash |
You might be asking yourself "How does this topic relate to recovery from binge-eating?" What I found is that - for me - finding new ways of thinking about life and its challenges helped me to stop stress-eating, and has been a very big part of my ability to stop binge-eating.
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Such wise words!
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