Happiness in life: Part 1
Happiness is pursued perhaps more today than in any other era. This is quite illogical when we think of centuries past when humanity did not have the technological inventions we have today, people did not live as long and lacked modern conveniences and, in general, life was harder in that it placed greater physical demands on the body in terms of domesticity, manual labour and poverty. This made the pursuit of happiness more difficult.
Happiness however means different things to different people and while thousands throng to seminars on the pursuit of happiness and how to attain it, rather than attaining happiness the pursuit seems to be an ongoing process. So what has gone wrong and why are we not happy?
Many of us seem to lack the tools to create happiness in our lives. We fall into patterns and repeat again and again the same things that did not work the first time, yet we expect different results. The reason we do this is because change is difficult; but to have happiness in our lives, if we don’t have it now, then we must change. We can talk about changing the world but that is not in our control. Changing ourselves to have a life filled with happiness is, however, in our control because that depends on our perspective and changing our habits.
The strange formula surrounding happiness is that the more we spread it to others the happier we seem to become and part of the reason for this is because we live in an interactive society. Often we are so busy whingeing about what we don’t have that we fail to look at what we do have. So we need to stop labelling ourselves and others, criticising and judging. By constantly focusing on what we don’t have we are reinforcing it.
An example of this would be the person who is continually saying they can’t afford luxuries in life as they are overwhelmed with bills. What they are in fact doing is manifesting that reality week after week, and they do become overwhelmed and surrounded by more bills.
Manifesting means that your own thoughts and perspective are making events happen: that is what you are putting out there, so that becomes what is attracted into your life. People who think about negative things are programming themselves for those things to happen, even though they may give lip service to the pursuit of happiness. In fact, they are already “happy” in a sense because their comfort zone is to whinge instead of attempting to be grateful and change their perspective to appreciate what they have, rather than what they don’t have, in life.
This is not to say that one should not have goals and dreams. Of course we need dreams, and it is the fulfillment of those goals and dreams that brings us happiness. Imagination is a great motivator and we should work on what we dream about. See a life coach who can help you create a dream board in all areas of your life. Your dream may be to find a partner, a great new job, that huge property, to travel … whatever you dream about you need to have the tools to make it manifest. A good life coach will help you work on a dream board and inspire you to expand your sense of self, focus your purpose and become involved in what you love. That will already put you on the path to happiness. So it becomes important to commit to manifesting your goals and your dreams and to have the faith that you can do it.
Faith in yourself is a big part of this. Faith in some kind of higher power can also be a part of it and this involves meditation and prayer. It’s hard in the world when we go it alone but we are never really alone and if we can tap into that higher energy that wants us to achieve happiness it becomes easier. Meditation will calm your mind, emotions and physical body while prayer will give you the confidence that there is something there to support and love you, even through the hard times. To believe in ourselves is great but at the times we waver then asking our higher energies, angels, God — whatever it is you believe in — assists us to convert our disbelief and negativity into positivity.
If you focus on what you want and work with diligence, this will add to your happiness. Even the process of the journey will create happiness because you will begin to see small fruits of your positive actions becoming real before your eyes. Often it is easy to lose the vision of what we want in life or you may not really know what you want, so seeing a life coach who can assist you to delve into your mind and heart and discover again what you perhaps once wished for, but never believed you could have. Once you believe that you can have what you want, and put focus and energy into achieving your dreams, then they can and will manifest.
Since this subject of happiness is so complex, I will write more about it in a second installment, so look out for it. Meanwhile, you can start looking at some of the points above to begin altering your perspective of how you look at your life and to begin to attract those things that will bring you the happiness you so much desire and deserve.
