Welcome to the Happiness Podcast,
I'm Dr.
Robert Puff.
Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything was just perfect?
Perhaps you were on vacation,
Maybe at an island,
Sitting on a comfortable lounge chair looking out over the vast,
Beautiful ocean,
The wind was gently blowing,
All was well.
For those few brief moments,
You weren't thinking about what happens when you go back home,
You weren't thinking about your rent,
Or your mortgage,
Or your job,
Or the so many infinite number of worries that cloud our mind throughout the day.
It was a perfect moment,
It may have been a perfect hour,
Even a perfect day,
But it takes so little to push us off that edge.
You have reservations for dinner that night,
You arrive right on time,
And they tell you there's a half an hour wait.
You get on social media,
You see that one of your friends or relatives is also on vacation,
And it looks maybe better than yours,
And you feel jealous.
At the end of the day,
You realize that you perhaps sat in the sun too long,
And didn't put on enough sunscreen,
And now your body aches from a sunburn.
Or thoughts about going home start creeping in,
The grind,
The daily grind of working,
Struggling,
Paying bills,
And all that goes with that,
Slowly creeping back in into your monotonous thoughts throughout the day.
And those brief moments of stillness,
Of calmness,
Of peace,
Have so quickly gone away,
And you're back to the daily grind of life.
So what's going on here?
Why can't we just be happy?
There's a common myth that pervades so many people on the planet,
The myth of if-then-fallacy.
If I get the promotion,
Then I'll be happy.
If I find my soulmate,
Then I'll be happy.
If my body gets over this illness,
Then I'll be happy.
We're so conditioned to believe that happiness is a destination reached through external achievements.
Sadly,
Though,
This is an unwinnable game.
Once we achieve one goal,
Then there's a new one that arises,
Or new problems that arise,
And we just get on this treadmill of,
Well,
When this happens,
All will be well,
And then it happens,
And all isn't well,
Or it's only well for a very brief amount of time.
Is it hopeless,
Or are we perhaps looking in the wrong direction?
Today I want to talk about the timeless ideal that true,
Unshakable happiness isn't found out there,
But is an inherent quality of our own soul.
This truth has been around throughout the ages,
And I want to start today by talking about what the wise souls of the past have been teaching us,
Which is still true today.
Plotinus,
One of my favorite mystic philosophers of all time,
Taught that the material world is just a shadow of a higher spiritual reality,
Which he called the One.
He taught that if we want to find truth,
Beauty,
And contentment,
We must turn our attention inward,
Away from the distractions of the external world,
And journey towards our own center.
For Plotinus,
The soul's true home and source of all joy is this internal connection to the One.
No lasting happiness can be found externally.
The One,
Or our higher,
Deeper self,
Is contemplated in stillness,
Not through achievement,
But by being still.
Let's go back to my story or my example that I started with at the beginning of this talk.
We talked about being on the beach,
And all is well,
But all is well because there are no thoughts,
We're just being present with what is.
We weren't worried about the past,
We weren't perseverating about the future,
We were just contemplating being still in the present moment.
For Plotinus,
This is the path to happiness,
Nothing external,
Only internal stillness.
And then there were the Stoics who taught about building an inner citadel,
Whose key idea was,
We can't control external events,
But we have absolute control over our response to them.
Happiness comes from cultivating this inner citadel,
A fortress of the mind that is immune to external fortune or misfortune.
The Stoics taught that true well-being is found in virtue and a mind that is in accordance with nature,
Not in pleasure or possessions.
And then there's the Eastern traditions teaching the art of detachment.
The Buddha taught that suffering comes from attachments to desires and outcomes.
By letting go of this craving,
We find an inner peace,
He called nirvana,
That is independent of worldly conditions.
Lao Tzu,
Who was a Taoist philosopher and wrote the Tao Te Ching,
Speaks of finding contentment by living in harmony with the natural flow of life,
Rather than striving and forcing outcomes.
True happiness,
He taught,
Is in simplicity and being,
Not in having and doing.
And then there's Jesus' teaching,
Where he said,
Truly I tell you,
Unless you change and become like little children,
You will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
One of my favorite examples that exemplify this teaching of Jesus comes from Winnie-the-Pooh.
It was Eeyore's birthday,
And Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet wanted to give him a present.
So Pooh brought him a jar of honey,
And Piglet brought him a balloon.
Well,
Before they got there,
Pooh ate all the honey,
And Piglet popped the balloon.
But the childlike part of Eeyore looked at the jar,
Looked at the balloon,
And realized he could put the balloon into the jar and pull it back out again,
And put it in again,
And pull it back out again.
And he was so happy.
When we begin to practice stillness and presence,
Which is a modern version of Plotinus' looking inward,
We'll find in that stillness,
All is well.
Because now we're realizing there's so much in life we can't control.
But what we can control,
Our response,
Is so powerful.
It's not that we're looking for things to go poorly and then adapting to them well.
It's more that whatever is presented to us is a gift.
And we make that work.
And we stop putting labels on it as this is bad and this is good.
It's far more flowing with life and saying,
I can make anything work.
If our spouse asks us for a divorce,
And now we have part of the time free where we're not responsible for our kids,
We can use that time for spiritual development and growth.
If our grocery bills are going up faster than our weekly budget,
We become creative and say,
Oh,
How do I make this work?
Perhaps I could find a food bank.
Perhaps I could be more resourceful in how I shop.
Perhaps I can look for specials and coupons.
And perhaps I can be grateful for the food the universe is giving me today.
Because I know throughout history,
People have gone hungry.
And yet today,
I have food.
And I'm OK.
And I'm going to focus on the day.
And tomorrow,
Because I know I have skills in place,
I will figure out tomorrow when tomorrow comes.
But today,
I will be grateful and thankful and resourceful for getting through the day well.
I once lived on $70 for a month.
That is all I had.
No room,
No board,
Nothing.
Just $70 and the clothes on my back.
And do you know what I discovered?
People were so kind.
They did so many incredibly beautiful things to help me get through that month.
I was hungry sometimes.
I was cold sometimes.
But without even asking for help,
Other people noticed.
And they helped me.
And I got through that month with so many beautiful memories.
I think most of us,
When we go through tragedy,
We really focus on how unfair it was,
How tragic it was,
And how much pain it caused us.
And I'm not negating that listening to our feelings are important.
But when we begin to learn that the true happiness isn't external,
But it's inside of us.
It's always there,
Waiting for us.
We just need to be still.
And in that stillness,
We'll see the beauty of our world.
We may have very limited control,
But there will always be something beautiful to be with.
And in the stillness,
I believe we'll find our deepest form of happiness.
Because when we learn to quiet our minds,
Be still,
And be present,
What surfaces is,
All is well.
When there are no fears,
And there are no worries,
What is there and is always there,
Is a deep peace.
But if we're not going to find it in the external world,
Then we do need to start looking more inward.
Through non-attachment,
Through mindfulness,
Through presence,
Through gratefulness.
These are the tools that cultivate real and lasting and unshakable happiness.
Happiness is not a fragile thing that can be given or taken away by the world.
It is our very nature,
The unshakable core of peace,
Waiting to be uncovered.
But we have to shift our focus away from our fears,
Away from our desires,
And into the here and now.
Happiness is not in the future.
Happiness isn't in things going perfectly.
Happiness is in being still in our minds,
Being present,
And flowing with life,
Whatever it is.
And I want to end with this one last thought.
When we're not so angry at the world for what it's bringing to us,
But we do find gratefulness and joy in the little things of life,
Other people,
The universe,
God,
Notices that.
And because I believe at our core,
People are primarily good,
Are kind.
I know they don't always act that way,
But at the core,
I believe people want to be loving and kind.
That that's what we'll get when we're not so angry at the world.
Would you rather help a cat who is vicious and mean and thrashing out at you,
Or a cat who is in pain,
Suffering,
And reaching out to you through that suffering?
During that month when I was living on very little,
Towards the end of it,
One night I was staying at a campground up in the mountains.
I didn't have a sleeping bag.
I just had a wind jacket.
But thankfully someone had built a fire and I lied beside it all night long so I wouldn't freeze.
Well,
The next day a couple noticed that I had been sleeping by the fire all night long and they offered me a sleeping bag so I wouldn't freeze the next night.
It was incredibly loving.
And then the next day I had to go to town to find a job so I wouldn't starve to death.
And I had to hitchhike because I had no money for a bus or any form of way of getting there besides hitchhiking.
I was down to my last two dollars and a young man picked me up,
Asked me what I was doing.
I told him my story and he said,
Hey,
I work at a hotel in town and perhaps they're hiring and I could help you get a job there.
And you know what?
He did,
But he was only there for a summer because he was a student at Stanford and was just doing an internship there for the summer.
But he helped me get the job.
He helped me find a place that I could live in for two weeks until I got paid.
And he was very kind towards me.
And he didn't ask for anything in return.
He just wanted to help me.
If we can keep our hearts soft,
If we can find the beauty in life,
No matter what we're going through right now,
I believe we'll find that life is beautiful.
Because the happiness that we're ultimately seeking is not external.
It's within us.
It's always there.
We just have to be still.
We have to be quiet.
And we have to flow with life.
Even though sometimes the flowing can be very turbulent.
When we flow well,
Then we may,
And I believe we will,
Find happiness is there for no reason at all.
Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.
Until next time,
Accept what is,
Love what is.
