Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness can turn into an eternal search for most people. Happiness is perhaps the most sought after, the simplest to achieve, and yet the most difficult to comprehend feeling in the world. The reason so many of us are unable to find happiness is because we don’t really understand its true meaning.

What Is Happiness?

If you ask around you’ll come across several different meanings of happiness. Based on what they desire at the moment, people interpret happiness in different ways. Happiness could mean finding love to someone who is lonely, while a struggling individual’s idea of happiness may be fame and money. Still yet, a successful and rich person may define happiness as finding peace. People usually define happiness as something they desire but don’t have. It’s this interpretation of happiness that makes it an ever-elusive feeling for most people.

We keep seeking happiness because we keep postponing it; that is, we refuse to be happy with what we have by convincing ourselves that we can only be happy once we achieve our dream. But the fact is our dreams keep changing as we move from one phase of life to another, and eventually there comes a point when we realize that we have spent an entire lifetime chasing a chimera.

How to Find Happiness

Finding true happiness can be the simplest thing in the world if you let it. All that you need to do is live in the moment. It may be easier said than done, though, because most of us are conditioned to either spend every free moment planning/thinking about the future or wasting it away by living in the past.

We forget that the past is gone and over. No matter how many future scenarios we imagine and how many plans we make, the future doesn’t exist at the moment; in fact, it is unknown and perhaps beyond our control! Our only reality is the present.

Living in the present allows us to appreciate what we have. After all, feeling gratitude for our blessings is bound to make us feel happier than berating ourselves for our past mistakes, lamenting our losses, or pining away for what we don’t have.

This doesn’t mean that one should not dream and hope; rather, living in the moment only means focusing your energies on giving your best to the present so that you can have a better future.

Happiness lies in every moment: it lies within us, and chasing it is what makes it elusive. Once you stop postponing your happiness and start seeking joy in everything you do, happiness will find you!

Until next time, embrace your inner wisdom.

Namaste,
Karen