The search for happiness begins at the moment we enter this world and continues throughout our life. Understanding our purpose is the underlying motivation in all that we do. We simply want to feel good about ourselves and our lives and be able to contribute something beneficial to the world in which we exist. For the most part, we seek this fulfillment through our relationships, our job, and even our leisure activities to a certain extent. What we often find, however, is that our efforts to provide a sense of happiness for ourselves is but a temporary feeling of satisfaction. The feeling of completion or lasting purpose still escapes us. We then find ourselves seeking the next career or relationship in order to achieve that sense of fulfillment. Does this sound familiar? The desire to be happy is a common goal for all of us, so why is it so difficult to find? The answer lies in our ability to define what happiness actually is. Once we accomplish this, we’ll discover what it is we’re really seeking. Let’s take a look.
Happiness Redefined
Being happy is certainly a good thing because it feels good. What we fail to recognize, however, is that feelings are temporary. Happiness in this sense is really an emotion and not a state of being. All feelings or emotions are subject to change and therefore will not remain static. There is no emotion that can be maintained indefinitely. If we consider sadness or depression, for example, that doesn’t feel good, so we wouldn’t attempt to make it last forever. We can view happiness in the same way. The other problem with happiness is that it’s always dependent on something outside ourselves. This is where our relationships, jobs, etc. come into play. We make the mistake of defining our sense of well-being and success through these things. We must remember that all things outside ourselves are subject to change, just like our feelings. In order for us to establish a sense of well-being that can be sustained, we must look within.
Changing our Focus from the Outside to the Inside
It is true, we’re all here to learn how to create our lives. This happens from the inside out, not the other way around. We spend most of our lives attempting to fix what is happening on the outside by jumping from one thing to the next. With a change in relationship or career, we do have that feeling of joy and excitement at first, but that feeling of emptiness eventually returns. We then quite naturally shift our focus from changing the outside to looking within. This is appropriate because long-lasting change can only happen here. We create from our own hearts and minds. The outer life and the outer world are always reflective of what exists in this inner place. It is important to remember that our power to create changes in the world is somewhat limited, but we can change how we feel about it. We will be more comfortable and feel successful by understanding that our only job and focus is ourselves. If we are miserable in our relationship or job, we will not fix it by making changes there. We will find in doing so that we only recreate the same feelings of discomfort. Again, change happens within. The key to maintaining a sense of well-being is to have a healthy relationship with our own self. This is what we seek.
Wholeness and Sustained Peace
We desire to feel whole. We want to feel complete. The only way to establish this sense of well-being is to develop a relationship with our higher self. It does not matter what we call it, it only matters that we become aware of it. Once we begin working on this relationship, we will understand its importance in creating a sense of well-being for ourselves. This takes time and involves a lot of hard work. If we’re willing to do it, we’ll create something we can always rely upon, no matter what is happening outside us. Once we know ourselves better and be comfortable with who we are, we’ll experience a sense of ease in our relationships, our work, and the world we live in. Once we let go of the need to feel intensely happy in our life, we will begin to feel ok. Feeling ok is enough. Finding peace inside ourselves is wholeness. This is what we seek to create and maintain. There is nothing else for us to do. We have achieved a self-understanding that can last.
All my love and support, stay safe and be well