Happiness Is Flaw😎
What do all we want from life? Immediately, our answer will come down to one thing: Happiness. Our culture’s fixation on happiness can seem almost religious. It is one of the only reasons for action that doesn’t stand in need of justification: happiness is good because being happy is good. More and more aspects of life are judged in terms of their contribution to the shadow of happiness. In our modern world, happiness is the closest thing we have to keep for the supreme good from which all other goods flow. In this logic unhappiness becomes the greatest evil to be avoided. But honestly, the obsessive search for happiness is associated with a greater risk of depression eventually. In reality, Happiness is like branches of tree and sadness is like a root of the tree, the more depth of the root is the more height of the branches are. Dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and pain are part of the human condition.
But we have to think whether we can build our lives on that circular reasoning. Most of us are led to believe that happiness is a final destination — one that can be reached if we make the right choices, learn from our mistakes, and keep pushing forward. We are taught that, once we finally find it, we’ll be forever satisfied in our lives, and so we live feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, chasing this dream, never stopping to question if it is, in fact, flawed. The reality is that it is flawed. “Happiness” is not a destination. It’s a state of mind, and you don’t need to be in it every moment of every day. Not only is that impossible, but it’s also unhealthy. Life is complex and uncertain. Ups and downs are normal. The day you land that promotion you’ve been longing for might also be the day you suffer your first heartbreak. How do you experience happiness if you don’t know sadness and pain? It took me 39 years to understand this.
Death of loved ones or giving birth all cause suffering in the chase of the final, joyous result. Accepting the inevitable, while trying to minimise its harm, is the only way to live. You can also use pain minimisation as a guide to action. If the process of preparing a meal causes you more pain than the pleasure you anticipate from finishing it, then don’t do it. But if a little pain now will prevent greater pain later – the pain of giving up smoking to avoid the pain of cancer for example – then that pain can probably be justified. So, The happiness is a matter of being a good accountant and minimising pain in the most efficient way possible. A good life can be an unhappy one. I used to travel places around me, meet diverse people and listen to their stories on purpose. Many of the people I interacted with carried a fear of failure, financial instability, and judgement from others and themselves around not being good enough. The three greatest barriers to leading a fulfilled and happy life seemed to be distraction, fear, and a lack of curiosity about oneself, others, and the world in general.
Through listening to people’s stories, I also found that those who allowed themselves to fully process so-called “negative” emotions, along with the more positive ones, led happier lives. As they processed those negative emotions, it helped them uncover what truly mattered to them — It is the ability to experience a diverse range of emotions in equal measure. The people who felt the most fulfilled were the ones who had learned to let go of the need to feel happy all the time and had not only accepted the ups and downs that come with being alive but had also come to appreciate them. This mindset and behavioral shift helped them lean into uncertainty, embrace emotions (both positive and negative), and adapt to their environment with intention and meaning.
Happiness in my dictionary is being able to ride the wave of every emotion that life throws at you, knowing that you can come out the other side just a little better than what you were before because you have the skills (focus, courage, curiosity), the resources (a positive mindset), and the support structure (a community) to make that happen.We live in a world that is designed to distract us. Our attention has become a highly valuable commodity. Productivity has become a disease, and “busy” has become our default. In the pressure to be productive, we’re filling every waking moment with something to do, whether it’s finding an activity to keep us busy or spending time on our devices.
Focus: Distractions keep us from finding the mind space to sit with both good and bad feelings, including boredom and sadness. Cultivating focus is about learning how to step away from the constant white noise of busyness. It’s about creating the space to be, to think clearly, and to determine what truly matters to us so that we can include more of those things in our lives. Try removing the word “busy” from your vocabulary for just one week and observe how it impacts your mindset, your behavior, and the connection you have with others. Letting go of the word busy is the first step toward owning your actions and explaining them with intentionality. I did this two years ago and it changed my life. When I was asked how I was, instead of saying, “I’m so busy,” I would say, “I’m positively engaged. No life worth living should meet the standard set by our views of happiness. Instead, Embrace those pains and flourish in spite of them.🤗😎🌹
– Manimozhi Ilango
My Fatty Brain Cell 