Happiness is a state of mind and a feeling like many other feelings a human being is capable of experiencing such as sadness, pain, fulfilment etc. But why is it that we have such a massive appetite for it? After all, we don’t tend to try to be sad or be laughing all the time, why are we trying so hard to be happy always? that’s what crazy people do anyway.
Well, since happiness is a pleasant experience for us human beings, we tend to try to chase it or achieve it using our conscious attention or our intellectual capabilities. The same way we do for anything else we would like to experience or obtain. After all, our intellect is what separate us from the animals and there is so much that we have created using our intellect.
So, what is the best way to achieve happiness then? you may ask.
Certainly money can lead us to happiness. More money, more power. And power equals happiness. Right? Well, not necessarily. You can be all wealthy and powerful, but what happens if I was to take away your loved ones or when your body gets heavily ill with no known cure. Can you still be happy or force yourself to experience happiness? In other words, can a powerful individual have control over every situation?
Usually, our solution to any situation we dislike or find difficult is to change it or if that’s not possible we try to run away from it. But every here and then, we find ourselves in a situation where things are completely out of our control. Our intellectual capabilities can’t provide us with a way out and we feel helpless. But as human beings, we don’t give up that easily and very often we continue to look for a way out exhausting all our options and resources. But eventually, as we keep going down this path with no avail solution, you’ll come to understand that the whole process of chasing happiness is a bit of hit and miss or a conscious illusion even when you are all wealthy and powerful. Let alone for us ordinary folks who need to work for 12 hours a day just to get by.
The reason I am saying this, is because we need to understanding that our feelings simply arise in a response to a situation we are experiencing and not necessarily under our conscious control. But because of the false advertisement that goes around us through the mass media and the social platforms of our modern era, we tend to think that happiness is something we need to work for in order to achieve it. And the best way to do that is more money and power.
So then, can happiness be obtained?
Well, yes and no. Let’s look at it from a different angle.
Happiness basically is the amount of tolerance we tend to have towards certain situations. Like swimming for example, a swimming athlete can swim for hours in deep waters and enjoy the whole experience, coming out of it safe and fulfilled. Whilst for someone who doesn’t know the sport, same experience can be fatal and the worst thing they’ve encountered. As you can see, the difference between two cases is the tolerance they have towards the same situation or the know how in other words.
Life tends to put us in all sorts of different situations so we can experience this crazy mysterious existence with all its ups and downs. So as we go through them all, our tolerance towards difficulties increases. Hence the saying, “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. But what it also does, is to give you an opportunity to experience happiness.
We often see, after a dreadful life experience or challenge, once we have conquered the situation and came out of it, there can exist a feeling of fulfilment, happiness and a feel of calm. And that’s because by seeing the challenge through we have increased our tolerance towards life challenges extensively, we feel stronger, a better version of ourselves and that brings us happiness.
But it is also important to understand, such experiences are not something we create consciously and more often than not, we don’t even know how we’ve managed to survive and overcome the challenge and usually refer to it as being lucky.
Finally, if happiness can’t be obtained then how does it occur?
It is the power of our sub-conscious that is doing the job for us. Subconsciously we are powerful beings, part of a vast organism called life or existence and we are capable of doing all sorts of things but we simply don’t know how. The same way that we don’t really know how to beat our heart, grow hair or digest our food. Nevertheless, we do it on everyday basis, but we do it subconsciously and we don’t really understand the mechanism of it.
So when comes our turn for our fair share of happiness, life will put us through a difficult situation where we somehow manage to overcome and raise our tolerance and that can sometimes result in being happy.
It’s worth mentioning, this is not a state which lasts forever and will eventually fades as everything else does in life. Hence the ups and downs of life. For every up there is a down and for every down there is an up. Exactly like a pulse, so that the life can go on.
That means, our conscious attention is not really a tool which we can use to chase happiness. however, it is good to make us aware of our feelings. It creates an echo of our everyday experiences, and let us know what we are feeling is real.
