If You're Seeking Happiness, Stop Looking
And stop consuming so much. Start living!
“Happiness! Look at how happy our perfect IG wedding has made us! Look how happy YOU could be by doing x,y, and z! The five happiness boosting foods that you need to be eating now! How to increase happiness by x percent in an absurdly short amount of time!”
How many ads have you seen like this recently? Influencers selling ideas for cash. Self-help books, shouting at you from overburdened shelves about how to boost your happiness, all the while reminding you that you are, at this very moment, NOT HAPPY.
They're targeted at something insidious that's been hardwired into your psyche by advertising since you opened your newborn eyes:
Discontentment.
Happiness in America is just like fitness, diet, religion, and success:
It is an industry.
Let’s hop into the mind of someone in this industry for a moment:
Imagine that you're a gym owner. Now, you do want a certain number of muscular, great-looking people at your gym, sweating away and looking awesome. They help you sign up the real gold mine, people who pay and don't go.
These people quietly let you charge their cards every month, too ashamed to cancel because they are "going to go." They politely give you money and don't tarnish your fancy equipment.
Now imagine that you publish and market books on happiness. If everyone who bought a book became happy afterward, you have no repeat customers! You want the people who keep buying. It’s the same as selling a beauty magazine. You can't sell the idea that everyone is beautiful! If people felt beautiful tomorrow, what do they need the magazine for?
It’s important to understand that while there are people with better and worse motives, we live in a country where every last aspect of life is motivated by profit margin.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that there aren't wonderful books on happiness or fantastically well-intentioned authors who want you to be happier.
If you're looking for awesome books on happiness, research the ones that are a few years old, that have stood the test of time. Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project for example. Give the really good books a bit of time to rise to the top, and beat out the competition.
There are fantastic books on happiness, just like there are fantastic books on everything else. There are great voices in the happiness movement who post on social media and speak publicly.
This doesn't solve the underlying problem, however. that you are looking to a book/social media to try to find happiness. The odds are against you if this is your process. Happiness is a fleeting emotion that has immense value (but only as a contrast to sadness).
Here is a tough-love statement that needs to be more widely understood:
You are never going to be happy all the time.
It would have no meaning if you were happy all the time. There would be nothing to compare it to. Hell, the freakin’ Dalai Lama has said this! Publicly! The search for happiness is a futile pursuit because happiness is not a product that you can buy or consume.
Happiness arises as a by-product of a fulfilling, contented life.
We have got to shift the focus from happiness onto something more attainable: contentment.
Contentment?! You may be screaming. The enemy of progress?! The feeling that I, as a high achiever, must avoid lest I cease production immediately?!
Yes, contentment. And stop yelling.
Contentment, the feeling that we, as consumers, have been taught to stay away from. Contentment doesn't pay gym memberships it doesn't use, stretching itself to the limit to live in a way bigger house than it needs, surrounded by happiness books it bought and hasn't read.
Contentment lives beneath its means, saving and investing the surplus that it always has.
We've been taught to avoid contentment because contentment isn't profitable. That's the bottom line.
People who sell you things don't want you to be content, because they don't want you to stop buying things.
I love contentment because I dislike authority. Contentment and the feeling of having enough are an active open rebellion against the status quo. I write about how to opt-out of the cycle because it is awesome on the other side of contentment. The knowledge that you have enough creates even more.
When you feel more content, happiness, that elusive smoky goblin, comes along more often. The highs are high, and the lows are... Medium. You don't fall to the depths of despair nearly as often when you’ve trained your mind for contentment.
Stop seeking happiness. Happiness arises as a byproduct of a fulfilling, intense life. Seek to be fulfilled and content instead of happy, and you’ll start reaping the benefits.