The Quest for Happiness

There is overwhelming number of references to "being happy" in the world around us right now. I just did a quick google search for songs with the word "happy" and found a site that said they found

37,748 lyrics,

37 artists,

and 100 albums

matching "happy".

That is a lot of happy in our culture for a population that is decidedly NOT happy.

I really believe everyone has become engrossed in searching for happiness externally that they have forgotten to look internally.

Sadly, I am acquainted with a number of people who are going through break ups, divorces, and the like. My number one piece of advice I give to them is to take time to learn to be happy with their self. 

It is a simply stated piece of advice that is horrifically hard to accomplish, especially for people-pleasers (such as myself). 

When you take the time to look internally, you will be surprised at what you find. I have done an extremely large quantity of self work over the past 2 years. Grief and loss will do that to you. It made me question EVERYTHING in my existence. It wasn't always easy, but the hard parts were definitely worth arriving to the point that I am at today. A point that is merely a resting point because it is a journey that will only end when my time here is over. 

I am getting a bit rambly and unfocused. Let us return to the nuts and bolts of this post. The QUEST for happiness.

When you are on a quest, you normally don't have a detailed map. Yes, you may have some clues, some general directions or ideas of how to get from point A to point B. However, the map doesn't tell you of washed out roads or downed trees blocking your path.

In an externally focused quest for happiness, these obstacles can be a divorce, the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or any other thing you can think of that switches your course without you planning the change of direction. That is the problem with being externally focused on your quest for happiness. External obstacles can pop up and "ruin" the route. 

When you start to focus internally on your quest, you start looking at the causes for unhappiness or causes for the downed tree. Maybe the tree fell because it was not in a nutrient rich soil that could support it. As we apply this ideology to the quest for happiness, maybe you find you are ungrounded in your current environment. And REALIZING that you are ungrounded gives you a direction to move in, and area to "fix". 

In my own quest, one of the first realizations I had was that I placed too much of my happiness and other moods into the hands of others. As I dug deeper into that idea, I also realized that I transferred expectations of myself into perceived thoughts of others. (Example: I "thought" my husband would be upset if the house was not straightened and clean. In reality, I expected myself to keep the house spotless. My version of "cluttered messy house" was not an issue to my husband.) The more time I spent evaluating the IMPACT of this habit, I realized some of my external happiness was because of an internal discord with myself. 

As I worked to correct, or more importantly NOTICE, this trait, I found that the load had been lightened. I dumped some of the unnecessary baggage I had strapped on.  It was easier to be happy because I was enriching the soil rather than polluting it. 

Yes, there are always going to be external obstacles. That is the nature of life. However, as you focus on your internal happiness, you may just find that your reactions to the external obstacles change. The obstacles are merely seen as an inconvenient detour rather than an insurmountable road block.

Look inside of yourself. Find the TRUE YOU that is hidden within. 

*My little note on this process. It isn't an easy process. You may have to accept truths about yourself that are a little hard to swallow. Shining light in a cave exposes everything that is there. Ignorance is bliss. But not knowing about the hole in the floor of the cave could cause you greater injury and pain in the the long run.