The Key to unlocking Lasting Happiness: Secret Revealed

We all desire lasting happiness but it always seems just out of our reach. Maybe that’s because we are going about it all wrong. Today I will share with you the secrete to unlocking happiness. Truly one of the most profound descriptions on happiness, why it is so hard to achieve and so difficult to keep once we have experienced it.

“Those only are happy  who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning.”

― John Stuart Mill, Autobiography

How to actually achieve true happiness

If you are human, you can relate to this paragraph. So often we chase a goal or dream assuming it will bring us the happiness we are searching for. But we are often left disappointed, even if our dream or goal was achieved. How many times have we said or heard “I will be happy when…” The truth is, the time to be happy is now, today. Happiness is a verb. Not a destination you can arrive but something you actively do. Mr. Mill was absolutely correct, happiness can not be achieved on purpose. Happiness is something we find along the way when we are fully engaged in a task. When all efforts and talents are focused on something other than trying to be happy.

“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so” The trick is to not try to be happy. The only hope we have to feel happiness is by actively directing our attention outward, pursuing something we are passionate about. Shifting our focus away from our own happiness will lead to deeper fulfillment and hopefully happiness will be felt along the way, usually only after it has passed. The Buddha said “There is not path to happiness, happiness is the path” So my goal this week is examine what passion, hobby or interest I can dedicate more time and energy too. I will do so for no other reason than to provide an outlet for my mental energy, while not concerning myself with how “happy” I am.