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I’m going back to the roots of this blog today. Back in the first post, I talked about how if you are lacking certain traits, you will not be able to do as much as you otherwise would: System requirements. As anyone who runs a computer knows, sometimes an application will require more than just basic statistics. Sometimes, they will require a certain environment or that another program be installed first. One system requirement that I see people running into that I didn’t mention earlier is happiness.
Some people say that happiness is a virtue. I dunno. I would say that depends on the way you define virtue. For our purposes here I’m going to treat it like any other system requirement. It’s important because unless you are a fundamentally happy person, many techs will not work for you. If you are a basically unhappy person and you try to manifest some good in your life, you will either get nothing, or wind up manifesting that which you are trying to avoid.
How happiness is viewed today
In my part of the world, there is a pervasive but unspoken thought that happiness is scarce. Furthermore, in order to acquire this scarce resource, you have to get it from someone else. In order to make yourself happy, someone else becomes less happy. Ads are up in just about every media outlet saying that in order to be happy, you have to buy our product. I’m not saying that advertisements and buying things are bad, but what I am saying is that if you buy things expecting happiness to be bundled with it, you are going to be disappointed. Much the same for romance. People expect that when they find that someone that instantly everything will be perfect. The sad story there is that if you are dependent on someone you have never met to bring you happiness, you’re in deep trouble.
Happiness is the gateway to improving your life
I know what many of you are saying: “I need this to be happy” No matter what this is, if you aren’t happy to begin with, getting this won’t do it. That makes me think of something that Robert Kiyosaki wrote: A man was sitting in front of a wood stove, with wood in his arms. He said to the stove “Give me some heat, then I’ll give you some wood!”
Just like Dorothy learned in the Wizard of Oz, if we aren’t happy already, nothing outside of us will change the condition. What then do we do?
Happiness comes from within
Continuing on from Dorothy’s example, there are few other examples I’d like to show you:
- In “Cool Runnings”, the coach explains to the main character, that if he wasn’t enough without a gold medal, that he would never be enough with one.
- In “Unbreakable” the main character had awoken to sadness every day of his life until he learned and accepted the truth of himself. On that day, his sadness left him
- In “The 10th Kingdom”, the main character realized that happiness is found within, and thus it is possible to live happily ever after under any circumstances.
These illustrations are just to demonstrate that happiness comes from within, not from outside. Since that is the case, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that no matter what you buy, that will not “give” you happiness. The good news is that you can be happy in your life if you choose to be.
Happiness and Awareness go hand-in-hand
Being aware of your world (both inside and out) is a huge step towards happiness. When you increase your level of awareness, you find that you have more decisions than you otherwise would. You learn that you don’t have pursue this or that behavior, or that you can change the situation for the better. If you are not even aware of a choice to be made, then you cannot make that choice, and whatever is the default will happen automatically. This is why I stress being mindful of your internal state and it’s relationship to the world around you. The two are a reflection of one another. Imagine if you suddenly had the ability to change the world around you? Well, you already have that ability, it’s just that you may not yet be aware of it.
How to increase your happiness from within
This post is the first in a series of five on the topic of awareness, happiness, and how they affect your life. Next up is the topic of money, a great source of emotion for many of us.
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