The “Truth” about finding happiness
by Amir Zoghi
If there is one thing we all have in common, no matter the colour of our skin, our age, or our gender, it would be that we all want to live a happy life. To find a happy job, happy relationships, happy lifestyle and happy living, right?The problem with this picture is where exactly do you actually fit in? I mean you, not your life circumstances, not your job, your lifestyle, your worth etc. Do you really think that “you” will be fulfilled when your life circumstances are “fixed”, “changed” or “improved”? Wait, before you answer that question, let me ask you another question. In the past, when you fixed, changed or improved your life did you find happiness? Or was it just a temporary relief? Until you started seeking for more money, a better job, the next relationship, a better home or car?
Just like a drug addict that needs a temporary relief from his pain, people seem to seek that same momentary relief, only people seek for it in the form of feeling happy. “What may give you happiness is precisely what may bring upon you unhappiness”. How many times have you found happiness in your relationship, in your job or in any other of your external identities only to experience unhappiness from what you once believed to bring you happiness? Does happiness then even exist or is really an illusionary experience of what we are truly looking for; fulfilment, meaning and purpose. “Happiness is only an emotion that we describe for when something external is giving us a temporary relief from the unhappiness that we find inside. Fulfilment on the other hand will be our infinite natural state when we stop seeking for something externally to bring us happiness”.
What does this really mean? Well quite simply put, the only reason we seek to find happiness in our external world is because we are unhappy internally. We are unhappy internally because we seem to be frightened to know who we are, frighten by our own infinite possibilities and our light. This fear misleads us to seek upon who we are in our external world, so we venture out to build on our identities externally so we may find happiness, meaning and purpose within our external world. The “Truth” however, is that if we were to stop seeking for happiness externally we would realise that we are happiness itself and that is what allows us to realise the purpose and meaning of what we call our “Life”. That is what is it means to be fulfilled.
I once read a story that was emailed to me that I feel would be suitable to share with you;
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite -- telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.
Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to know who we are. "The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything they have."
For as long as you seek to fix, improve or change your external identity so that you may find “happiness” you will be met with both happiness and unhappiness. You will be met with life’s grand illusionary “play”, a “play” that is a game, a game that cannot be won, only played. It’s only when you “let go” of trying to win this game of “life” that you shall free yourself to experience fulfilment and remember the meaning and the purpose of who you are.
Seek only for your self and not for happiness, happiness is only for by an identity that is not yet conscious of its self. Seeking to be happy is only leading you away from the “Truth”, the “Truth” of who you are. When you know yourself, you will never need to seek happiness as you will be fulfilled not matter what your life circumstances are. Your life circumstances will no longer be determining who you are; rather you will determine your life circumstances.
Love,
Amir Zoghi
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