Happiness Isn’t A Thing

A couple years ago I came across the motivational card pictured above and immediately ‘had’ to have it. “I love that!” I thought, “Happiness is going to find me! And it’s going to be amazing!” A few months later I’m sitting at my desk, lamenting over some lame thing that happened at work, and look up at the card. “It’s cool,” I sigh to myself, “happiness will totally find me someday. And then I won’t have to deal with this crap anymore.” More time passes and I find myself on an off day — my energy is low, everything my fiance says is getting under my skin, and I catch a glimpse of that stupid card. I slumped back on the couch feeling sorry for myself. “When is happiness going to f*cking find me, already?!”

Sound familiar? There’s something intoxicating about the motivational phrases we’re drawn to, isn’t there? But when have those phrases ever really set your life on the course you’ve hoped for? The truth is, motivational phrases often feel good because they allow us to be passive bystanders on the road to happiness and fulfillment. (aka “spiritual bypassing”).

Here are some examples of inspirational quotes I found on instagram just now:

“Wake up and be awesome!” — sounds cool! (but how?)

“Old ways won’t open new doors” — ah, so true! (so which new ways will open new doors?)

“Prove them wrong.” — f*ck yeah! (wait, what? how!?)

See? Motivational phrases feel awesome ...for about 13 seconds. And then there’s this “well, not sure how to manage that” feeling that sets in and it’s all over. They don’t offer much by way of instruction. With no tools to employ, we’re pretty much useless — and we’re left feeling even more terrible than before because we don’t know how to act when ‘motivated.’

And in the case of my favorite ol’ motivational phrase, happiness will find you, there’s something particularly disturbing at play — not only am I encouraged to be an incredibly passive bystander (I don’t even have to do anything! Happiness will find me!) which will only leave me sad and destitute when, lo and behold, it does not find me — but this phrase wrongly depicts happiness as a thing.

Now, I’ve traveled a long road toward happiness, and it’s a story I’ll save for another post, but if there’s one insight I’ve learned that has helped me most along my journey, it’s this: happiness is NOT a THING. Happiness is not some foreign object that you stumble upon one day. And it certainly doesn’t have a conscience. It’s not out to ‘find’ you, it’s not ‘hiding’ somewhere until you ‘find’ it, and it’s not going to jump out at you one day waving, “HEY! Here I am! Where’ve you been, dude?! Are you ready to be accompanied by joy everyday from here on out? Right on, man!” It’s just not going to happen. Because happiness is not a thing. Happiness is a state of mind. It exists always. It is inside of you always. It’s not a foreign object that you have to “find” — it’s more like a cloud of energy inside your brain that you have to tap into.  

For real, envision it as a keg of delicious happiness tonic that’s just chillin’ inside your brain. You’ve got the tap. You’ve just got to hook it up and squeeze.  That’s the first thing we all have to understand about happiness. It is forever accessible — we just have to learn to access it. And believe me, you CAN.

If I were to leave you on that note, I’d be nothing more than a glorified motivational poster. And that’s not why I created this blog. I created this blog because after years of battling my own patterns of negative, depressed, apathetic, lethargic thinking, I finally learned how to tap into happiness. And it has helped me in more ways that I ever could have imagined. Now I know how to wake up feeling motivated instead of anxious. I’m able deal with annoying people without wanting to throw things at the wall. I laugh more, cry less, and have more energy. I even eat better. I’m telling you, my journey has been life-changing.

I have become obsessed with pinpointing the systems I’ve used to achieve happiness in an everyday capacity and I so badly want to pass that knowledge forward. Because above all, I’ve realized how easy it can be if you just have the tools.

For years I didn’t have those tools. Our culture doesn’t (and most cultures don’t) teach us habits that set us up for a lifetime of joy — and I’m not talking about ‘just be happy settling for less’… I mean real, invigorating fulfillment. I think it’s time to put an end to that unhealthy, fruitless trend. It is possible to get the most out of every day. It’s possible to consider yourself happy.

I want to help you get there. Because I’ve done it, and it is so worth it.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. What are some of your happiness goals?