At some point in life - someone at 30, someone at 50, but sooner or later this happens to everyone - we ask ourselves questions: how to become happy and what is happiness?
For years we can pursue the fulfillment of desires or the achievement of goals, in the hope of becoming happier. But not always accomplishments bring true comfort.
After the first fulfilling wish, we immediately write a new list of “Wishlist” and again and again we are missing something ...
And how would you like to be just happy, agree? Just bliss away from your life and feel completely satisfied for the years you lived right ...
Today I would like to talk on such a serious and somewhat philosophical topic of happiness.
Aristotle also said that the biggest question that a person worries about is the question of how to become happy. According to the philosopher, this is the only real purpose of man; and everything else - wealth, health, power, beauty - we need only to get closer to happiness.
Thousands of years have passed since the great philosopher thought about how to become happy - much has changed: science has stepped far forward, man is exploring space, studying the structure of the molecule. However, in matters of happiness, mankind has not advanced much.
We definitely began to live longer and better than at the time of Aristotle, we made life more comfortable, however, despite all the achievements of science, people are increasingly coming to the feeling that life was wasted and no benefits are destroying it.
One gets the feeling that this is a kind of destiny of mankind: to remain forever unsatisfied. We tend to desire more than we are able to receive. Why is that? How to become happy and what is needed for this? We’ll talk about this today.
What is happiness?
Philosophers of the whole world say that happiness is not what happens to us, it is not some kind of event - the result of luck or a coincidence. Happiness is a state within a person: lightness, peace, joy. Happiness does not depend on what is happening around the events, it depends on our interpretation of these events.
Happiness is something that each of us must carefully cultivate, cherish and keep in our souls, within ourselves. But in what ways is it possible to achieve this state?
How to become happy? The advice of the wise.
Many people believe that one must fight for happiness, achieve it, strive for it and fight for it. But happiness cannot be achieved by force. Thoughts on how to become happy make a person unhappy. J. Mill said: "Ask yourself if you are happy, and at that very moment happiness will slip away from you."
What affects happiness?
Our life as a whole is influenced by a huge number of factors: the environment in which we grew up, the political situation in the world, weather, income level, etc. Most of these factors are outside our sphere of influence - and it is not surprising that it seems to us that our happiness is determined by something outside of us.
However, people who survived severe hardships, who were in inhuman conditions (for example, in concentration camps), later admitted that it was in such difficult circumstances that they had especially brightly and fully experienced ordinary, at first glance, events: for example, birdsong, the end of a difficult the work or the taste of bread shared with a friend.
At such moments, it becomes obvious to a person that despite all the pain and hardship, he alone is the arbiter of his own life.
In a more relaxed atmosphere, a person experiences something similar when he achieves some kind of result that he worked hard for a long time, when the creator sees his work in action, when the parent first holds his newborn baby to himself and so on. For each of us, these are different moments.
Of course, we always choose how to relate to the events and circumstances of our lives. However, in the end, it is precisely this state of feeling of involvement in the definition of one’s life that is closest to what people are accustomed to calling happiness.
American psychologist Mihai Chiksentmihayli in his book "Flow: the psychology of optimal experience" describes one interesting study. As part of it, a survey was conducted of musicians, athletes, artists, surgeons and other people about how they feel while doing what they love.
Why is being happy profitable?
A state of happiness will not save you from everyday problems, but it will definitely make your life better.
Surely you have repeatedly wondered how to become happy. And, most likely, they came to the conclusion that you will find the treasured state of peace and joy when you have your own apartment, or a new car, or an income of 100 thousand rubles. But no matter what you do, you cannot achieve what you want. And it seems to you that you are further and further moving away from your dream.
Or maybe you managed to get what you wanted, but happiness never came. And instead of experiencing positive emotions, you are disappointed and even more unhappy.
I will tell you a very important secret: you cannot experience happiness from fulfilling your dreams if you are constantly in a depressed state; most likely, you can’t even get closer to realizing what you want.
And when you are unhappy, when you scold everything that surrounds you, according to the law of attraction, the negative becomes more and more in your life. And no matter how much you think about how to become happy, in the end you will not succeed.
From this the conclusion suggests itself that being happy is not only pleasant, but also beneficial (and maybe even necessary). Because, only by broadcasting positive emotions, you can achieve more in life than you have at the moment: build a career, travel the whole world, start a family - everything you want.
So how do you become happy?
Do what you like every day. This is the simplest formula. Whether it's cooking, reading books or walking in the park. It does not matter what exactly brings you pleasure, the main thing is the sensations that you experience. The more you do something for yourself, the more happiness will be in your life.
To some, this advice may seem too obvious and simple. However, how often in the hustle and bustle of daily affairs we forget to devote time to what brings us real pleasure, load ourselves with extra work and more and more deeply bog down problems. And at some point we find ourselves in complete misunderstanding, at what point did life cease to bring joy and how to become happy again?
No one can make us happy except ourselves. We often seek solace from other people: loved ones, family, friends. Indeed, the emotional support that our loved ones can give us will reassure us, but after a while, the feeling of emptiness and loss of life again appears in the soul. Some seek solace in endless parties or, conversely, in an endless pile of worries. But the answer to the question of how to become happy is not found.
If you are so mired in negative thoughts that you don’t already know what gives you pleasure, remember what you loved doing in childhood, which brought you such joy that you couldn’t come off for hours and refused all requests from your parents to switch to an hour.
This is what your soul asks for, this is what makes you happy.
Make it your rule to do what you love every day for at least 20 minutes. And very soon you will see how your life has changed.
For those who need specific offers
You will become happy when you start to do what you want, when you diversify your leisure time with pleasant events, albeit small ones. Here is just a short list of classes that will first cheer you up and then help you become happier in the future:
- to meditate,
- enroll in courses for which they have long wanted,
- go to the spa,
- ride a horse,
- read an interesting book,
- go to the movies alone or with friends,
- visit the exhibition,
- visit the massage parlor.
So how to become happy?
By doing something that brings you joy, you are somehow distracted from negative feelings and completely stop wondering how to become happy. Because you are already in a state of happiness.
At the same time, a person can think only one thought. And the more you think in a positive way, the less time you have left for the negative.
Ancient philosophers and modern scientists agree on one thing - happiness can only be achieved through control of your emotions. Anyone who knows how to manage their experiences can control their fate, and this is the shortest path on the road called "How to become happy?".
A man gains happiness only when he ceases to chase after him and begins to contemplate with pleasure those little things in life that surround each of us. Being in the stream of events, not thinking about how to become happy, a person at some point may find that this is happiness, to enjoy every event in his life, no matter bad or good.