WANT TO BE HAPPY?
Our default state of being is to be happy. Young children playing are routinely happy - until something makes them unhappy
So, happiness is the absence of unhappiness.
To understand happiness, we must first understand unhappiness, to remove it.
Understand Your Brain.
Don’t listen to everything you think!
... Your thoughts are not you!
Your brain is a functioning organ, just like your liver cleaning blood, and your heart pumping oxygen around the body. The brain too is an organ - it’s role is to process information and it’s main priority is for your survival.
My survival! - Interesting!
This is why the brain mainly looks for threats – either:
- incessantly anxious about the future, or
- regretting past hurts and lessons learned,
– and rarely focuses on Now.
A lifestyle of peace and security
Our default state of being is to be happy. So how can you change your outlook to see past mistakes as constructive, and your future: as hopeful and optimistic.
There is no question - Bad things happen to everyone. But it is your 'thinking' response to those events, which causes your unhappiness, after that event has happened.
Often the brain will incessantly replay the pain of a past event, as a survival mechanism, so we will not repeat the pain – even if replaying that pain makes you unhappy or depressed.
Similarly, to be anxious about possible future problems or failures, can dominate your peace and happiness – causing you to be unhappy.
Such negative thoughts can be incessant and cause anxiety, depression or hopelessness.
Control your thoughts?
Successful authors try to teach us techniques to control our thoughts to avoid painful incessant negative thoughts. But although there is a universal desire for peace and contentment in our thoughts, and many books are bought with the hope of a solution – in practice, recognising and controlling every negative thought, using mental exercises - takes a lot of effort and practice.
The two main approaches suggested seem to be, either:
- Try to do everything in a state of automatic 'flow' without stopping to think about anything, or
- Or, because the brain can only think of one thing at a time, keeping yourself distracted from negative thoughts, with an activity, or trying to think a different thought than the thought which is troubling you, can stop the painful thoughts for a while.
These techniques can be useful of course, but they are not difficult to master.
Looking for Happiness in the Wrong Place ?
The best-selling author Mo Gawdat ('Solve For Happy') cleverly points out that there is confusion about what makes us happy, and that many people look for happiness in the wrong place.
In particular, there is a big difference between FUN and HAPPINESS, since our brain can only think of one thing at a time, fun is a way of distracting our brain from the incessant negative thoughts for a time, until the fun stops - then they recur.
This may explain why many young people look for fun, in drink, drugs, partying and sex, while still being unhappy when the party is over.
Happiness and peace on the other hand, are found when there are no dominating unhappy thoughts to be avoiding.
Fun then, is a temporary escape from unhappiness - it is not happiness.
People presenting to the world on Social media, a lifestyle of continual partying and fun, may actually be not as happy as some people may think when seeing their 'Highlight Reel' of smiling images.
