Looking for happiness is a fruitless exercise.
There is no such thing as finding happiness. You don’t hop on a plane to go somewhere to find happiness. You don’t make friends for happiness. You can’t even buy things for happiness. If all this were true, why are you miserable when you have friends, material goods, and opportunities to explore?
Happiness is a state of being.
You are either happy or you are not in your present situation. There is no middle ground of semi-happiness. This doesn’t even exist. Any lack of satisfaction in your life will lead to unhappiness.
The question that must be answered is what is it that makes people happy? Having traveled to many countries, I have come to some opinion about this. For example, several years ago I visited the beautiful country of Guatemala. As I travelled throughout the country I observed many people living a destitute life-style. They hardly had any clothes, food to eat, and clean water – yet from looking at their faces, they were some of the happiest people I found on this planet.
In comparison to some countries such as the U.S. where we have opportunities for great wealth, material objects and utilities that other countries would dream of, we are still in a state of unhappiness.
What must be realized is that unhappiness is largely driven by a lack of satisfaction derived from the competitive environment you live in. In competitive environments for jobs, lifestyles and material wealth there will always be unhappiness because we are living in world in comparison to others as a quantitative measure, not a qualitative one.
It’s kind-of like asking how many Facebook friends do you have? How many cars do you have? How much do you make? How much did you pay for that home? Get my point. What is the foundation behind all these questions? These are all quantitative questions we implicitly or explicitly ask and every one of them deals with a number so we can internally compare what we know about our state of being, in comparison to someone else.
For satisfaction to be realized, one must be qualitative. Being qualitative doesn’t have any association to numbers, hence there is not a direct comparison to be made. These are observations of a state of being or properties. For example you may just say he or she has Facebook friend, he has a nice car, she makes a good living, etc. Again, these are simple statements of fact.
My observations about the people of Guatemala lead me to believe they live a largely qualitative life-style. There is no need to compare as the have everything available to them based on their means. They are fully satisfied. They may not have enough clothes, material wealth, and opportunities but this doesn’t matter – they are not counting their possessions because they don’t have much – and they don’t have to as there is nothing to compare against when everyone in the society is also thinking this way. As a result, it’s easy for them to accept their state of being, be fully satisfied with what they have, and reach levels of happiness that go beyond what some of us can achieve.
Attaining happiness is not rocket science. Life is not a competition or a race to the finish line to see who you can leave in the dust. Whether you broke an Olympic record coming to the finish line is meaningless if what it took from your part are cut-throat actions, selfish desires, and a careless character.
People will remember you for the “countless” numbers of times you have helped them, motivated them or supported them. When you start counting you start keeping score and life becomes a game. Avoid doing this.
You don’t have to go far to find happiness. It is within you. You just need to sit down quietly for it to appear. It is a state of being derived by your desire for your own growth, without looking at what others are doing.
Focus on helping others unselfishly, don’t draw comparisons, and you will help yourself. Happiness is not intended to be pursued. Actions that are qualitative are defined as “countless” – focus on these actions and happiness will alight upon you.