Are we chasing happiness? why?
As another member pointed out to me, it is very important to stay connected here in the Wealthy Affiliate community! I had not really been focusing on the importance of this.
It is of course crucial to the success of your business (is that an ugly word, or is it just me...?), but more importantly, to your own happiness! Let me explain:
I was reading an excerpt from a book I think I will buy and do a review on. It is by a pediatric endocrinologist named Robert H. Lustig, who has written 3 books. They are all basically about how our food and health and joy have been hi-jacked by the big corporations. Well, that is the gist of it, as far as I can tell, having not really read any of them yet...
Anyway, in the excerpt I read, he talks about the words "contentment", "happiness", and "pleasure", and how they are related.
Pleasure and happiness are similar, because they both feel good. But pleasure is fleeting, and can become addictive.
Contentment means that you don't need anymore. You are good. But it does not necessarily mean you are happy!
Most of us seem to have a bit of a false understanding of what happiness is, or at least how to attain it. We tend to look in all the places where one would look for either pleasure, or contentment. I hope I am explaining correctly, so far...
In the excerpt that I read, there is a quote from John Butler Yeats to his son:
"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing."
It is hard to be happy if you derive no pleasure from your efforts. But if the goal is pleasure, or even attaining wealth to spend on whatever pleasures you have in mind that you think will make you happy, you are not really on a path of happiness (I say "of" because we will see that it is not a destination).
Do we really think this way? Do we walk through life equating happiness with growth?
It would seem to me that most of us do not think this way.
And what does "growth" even mean to us? I will tell you what I am learning to define growth as more and more:
If I am growing as a person, I have come to think that I am discovering what my purpose is, more and more.
As I go along, I realize that it has something to do with offering something valuable that I have been gifted with to the rest of the world. Or even one other person!
I am certain that you have something to offer to make someone else's life a bit better. Whatever it may be. It may not be crystal clear yet, but you only discover it as you use it!
To me happiness is and can really only be a byproduct of learning what your purpose is, and walking in it!
I hope you are discovering what your purpose is, and finding that as you walk in that purpose, your life makes sense, but it is a learning and a progressing that is the wheels and engine of happiness.
Thanks for reading!
Craig
PS: Mind you, nothing against driving with the top down and chocolate milkshakes...
Recent Comments
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I had a comment to make, but decided it might not be appropriate to open conversation, being more of a religious concept. I was going to send it via private message, but cannot find that place on your profile.
I was on the wrong page. I found it, and sent a copy to your private page (I think). Some training links also came up, so I'm not sure where it went...
Hi Craig
Thank you for a thought provoking post.
I believe everybody’s purpose is to grow, in whatever direction they choose that adds value to ourselves and/or others.
Putting that another way, I wonder, if we stop growing, do we still have a purpose?
:-)
Richard
I would hope a purpose would be an ongoing thing, if you can't be happy without it. But I don't even know if that makes sense because you have thrown me for a loop, hahaha.
Let me know if you come to a conclusion on that, Richard, :D
Hi Craig
Yes, I do have a take on this. I’ve been ‘studying’ the science of brain and mind since the early 80s. I started with learning about ‘self-image’ (now usually called mindset) from a book called Psycho-cybernetics by Dr Matthew Maltz first published in 1960.
Our understanding of what happens in brain and mind has come on in leaps and bounds since then, especially in relatively recent years through studies using modern brain scans.
Without going into detail, it’s a big subject and I’m already constructing a post for my website on this; I believe:
- at any one time we can have many purposes;
- they range from very short term to lifelong;
- they become known to us (or created) consciously through our experiences, and filtered or re-enforced through our subconscious mindset (values and beliefs);
- they invariably change/evolve throughout our lifetime.
:-)
Richard
Richard, Good question.
My thoughts only:
Growth is an upward climb. At some point we start leveling off.
Growth is not the point of purpose; the USE of that growth is the point of it all. To the level we have grown, our life may bless the world around us, and ourselves. Yes, we have a purpose if we continue to use what we gained to improve the concentric world around us.
That use of our learning will be varied according to the varied needs and active response of those with whom we interact. (Multiple purposes.)
Shirley
Hi Shirley
Thanks for joining in.
I mostly agree with you.
In my first comment I said:
“I believe everybody’s purpose is to grow, in whatever direction they choose that adds value to ourselves and/or others.”
Implicit in this comment is that we can only be adding value to ourselves and others from our growth if we use it constructively.
You say that “at some point we (our growth) starts levelling off.”
I would now ask why does this happen? I don’t know why. Brain science has proven that plasticity continues until very late in life. I suspect that people stop growing unnecessarily far earlier. I suspect they society has brainwashed us into thinking this way.
:-)
Richard
Very nicely said, Shirley. I have tended to focus on finding a "main" purpose, and maybe overlooked a "daily" purpose, although I have learned in recent years that every moment, and everyone you meet is important, and living in the moment and appreciating it as significant is probably a good way to learn to live. I have had only fleeting moments where I catch myself doing this, but I hope they are becoming more frequent. I have thought, at times, that the ability to live this way has something to do with what "eternal life" means, in a way. But that's just a thought I sometimes have... I am thinking of people with Down's "Syndrome". I don't think it's a "syndrome" at all.
I may be rambling here... This is me when I wake up 4 hours before I planned to, haha.
Hey, Richard! It appears that I didn't respond to this, initially... Sorry about that. I hope one of my purposes wasn't to do so... ;)
I'm intrigued by this book you mention. I have been interested in the pineal gland lately, as well as neuroplasticity. I wish I had more time to learn about the brain.
Isn't evolution AMAZING?! (I gest).
Hey Craig I was trying to rack my brain on whether one could be unhappy and still derive pleasure. Could not really think of any. So I have to concur with you and Lustig.
Well Hugh, I think of a heroin addict. They don't seem very happy, but there must be some pleasure/reward they experience. I guess the same could be the case with a person with depression who tries to get out of it by eating cookies! It must work, at least fleetingly. Like maybe pleasure is a counterfeit for happiness...?
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Well Craig, whatever comment I planned to make, I do not recall if it was ever made once I found your Private Message page.
But having revisited this post, and reread your writing, I am highly impressed by your deep thinking... concepts you have pulled from the reading about the Three Books you mentioned.
You have inspired other deep thinkers to excellent comments/questions (Richard), and myself not included.
Blessings on your work and writings. I'm glad you are a part of the WA communicating community!
Shirley
Thanks, lovely lady. I'm glad to know you here, as well.
And how about that Richard guy! ;) Smarter than your average bear!