What is happiness?
Happiness to a large extent is about pleasure but pure pleasure isn’t necessarily about feeding the senses with stimulation and becoming stationary in your everyday life…. (cue cute kitten video)
Happiness is about pleasure gained from overcoming obstacles, reaching your goals – these things are the very basis being happy.
Everyday we have goals, some small such as only drinking one cup of coffee instead of 5, keeping the kitchen tidy, replying to all outstanding emails but some goals are bigger and take longer to achieve. There is a ratio here of the size of the obstacle to the extent of one’s happiness. The larger and more difficult the obstacle, the greater the pleasure in overcoming that obstacle.
One might say that it is not the achievement of goals that creates happiness but the journey to reaching those goals.
Let’s take Bob. He has a goal of reaching Mars, he has many things he needs to do in order to reach Mars. He would need the equipment to build his rocket ship, funding for that equipment, he would need to find a crew to man the rocket ship and so on. Each and every time he overcomes an obstacle he feels a sense of pleasure and for a short time he – happiness. That is until his next obstacle. And so it goes that Bob continues to overcome his obstacles some large, some small until finally he manages to get to Mars. Now he has reached his goal and overcome many obstacles in getting there. Look at Bob now, see how happy is … but not for long. Now that Bob is on Mars he is no longer moving towards a goal, he is no longer overcoming obstacles. Now is the time for Bob to make a new goal…. An extreme example but you get the idea!
Happiness is like the tide – it comes and goes but by following the advice in this article you can control your tide. One cannot reach happiness and then stop and expect to be happy forever – you have to keep going. Keep making goals and overcoming things that get in the way of you and your goals.
Happiness within Security
Many think that security equals happiness. People want to be secure in their job, secure in their relationships and finances. They dream of this security as if it’s the holy grail of happiness. But the only security which will bring you happiness is your security of having the confidence to overcome any and all obstacles towards the attainment of your goals.
This is true security.
There are many anecdotes about successful business entrepreneurs who claim they would have no problem losing their money, losing their businesses tomorrow. Why? Because they have such confidence in themselves and their ability to overcome whatever gets in their way, that they know they can build these things up again.
We live in a society of dreamers, our ability to dream must be met with our ability to reach their goals. As a by-product of reaching goals many obstacles will have to be overcome and as they are, happiness will be obtained. If our entire society had this mentality, we would live in a much happier and peaceful world.
Take Action!
So go out today and make some goals. Start small and write down what known obstacles you will have and how you can overcome them. Then begin. Be aware of how you feel after you have overcome an obstacle, relish that feeling of happiness and allow it to spur you forward into overcoming your next obstacle.
Keep dreaming, keep hoping, keep making goals and achieving them. Then you will know what happiness truly is!