The Gold Currency of Happiness

There are many things that help us find happiness and peace in life. Do you ever wonder what is the most important thing we need in order to find happiness?

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. There are many things that contribute to our happiness. We've been talking about them for over five years now. But in this episode, I want to talk about really what I would call the gold standard of happiness. What is the main ingredient that we need in order to make sure we have happy lives? And it may surprise you because there are so many things that can enhance our happiness. Learning to live in the present moment is key. Being careful of attachments is another one. Making sure we have positive and sometimes no thoughts going through our heads. Meditation, Exercise, Spending time with people that we love, Loving what we do. Negative visualization, Clearly understanding the impermanence of life. Not creating stories in our head. Understanding the difference between pain and suffering. I mean, The list can be very long. That's why we've been studying it for so long. And we'll continue to so that we can all have beautiful lives. But there's one thing that needs to be there, No matter how much we have all these other things in place. That without this, We're just not going to find happiness and keep it in our lives. That's why I'm calling this episode the gold currency of happiness. And what is this currency? It's time. Because we need the time to develop these skills, To implement these skills in order to find peace and happiness in our lives. And what I've seen over the years is that people fall into three camps in regard to time. They don't have enough time. They're waiting in cell. Someday they'll have enough time for happiness. Or they have ample time and they're not using that time well. Or three, They make enough time for happiness and then they find it and they keep it going throughout their lives. Because happiness and peace aren't a goal. Something that you reach and then you rest on your laurels for the rest of your life. Happiness is something that we have to maintain. It's like being in physical shape. We can be in great physical shape and make a lot of time for it. But once we reach peak performance, If we stop doing the things that got us there, We're going to get out of shape. It's no difference in regard to happiness and peace. We need to make time for it. So why don't we? Why don't we make time for happiness? What keeps us from making that effort to make the time available so that we can have these beautiful lives that I keep talking about? What's the problem? Well, There actually are several problems that contribute to us not making time for happiness. The first one that I so often see is the someday I'll. Meaning, I'm going to work really hard right now, Work towards my goals, Become a doctor, Become a lawyer, Get through school, Build my first home, Keep doing these things so that someday I'll have time for happiness. Someday I'll have time to make the effort so that I can have that beautiful life. The problem with this is we get conditioned by that delayed gratification. So if or when that time comes, Say we get to retire when we're 70 and then we think, Now my life's going to begin. Well, 70 years of conditioning is really strong conditioning. I mean, Haven't you met people? Cause I sure have. They tell me now that they're retired, They have less time than when they worked full time. I've heard that hundreds of times by people that are retired. It may sound funny, But it's sad too. I mean, We always have time. It's not a commodity we don't have. We just don't unfortunately prioritize that commodity and make time something valuable that we use so that we can have these beautiful lives. I mean, It seems so simple. So why don't we do it? Why don't we just make time to do things that cause us to have smiles on our face? I live in Southern California and it is beautiful here. And one of the things that I encourage everyone that I know and work with is to go to the beach and go watch a sunset. And we can do that anywhere, But along the West coast, When the sun sets, It is truly spectacular. But it would probably shock you how hard it is for me to get people just to go to the beach and watch the sunset. I'll encourage it. I'll suggest it. I'll tell them you really ought to do this. And I've had people that I've suggested it to go for years without going to the beach. They just don't understand why it's important to go because other things are more important to them. And that's where we get caught. What happens is we think, Okay, If I'm able to save enough money, Work hard and buy my first home, Then I'll be happy. Then I can go to the beach. Or if I get out there, Find the right person to spend my life with, Find my soulmate, Have kids, Then I'll start living. Then life begins. Or I want to work really hard right now, Save lots of money so that I can quit this crazy job. Then I'll go to the beach and all will be well. I mean, That's kind of like saying, Guess what? I want to get in shape. So I'm going to build the most spectacular gym in the world that everyone will adore. They'll think it's so cool. And it takes years for me to build. Then I'll start working out. But till I build it, I'm not going to do anything physical. I mean, We would think that's crazy, But I'm not sure we're that far from the mark. We're waiting till someday I'll be happy because we want these things to fall into place first. What we need to do is find happiness now. If it isn't here right now, Then we will spend our life seeking it because it's here right now. But as we know, As we're talking about the day, We need time for it. We need time to meditate. We need time to go watch those sunsets. We need time to spend time with friends and laugh. We need time to be in nature. We need time just to be. This all takes effort. This takes time. But what catches us is one very tricky thing. We really compare ourselves to others. And we think, Okay, If I'm going to have a good life, Well, I need to have this type of car or better. If I'm going to have a good life, I definitely need this type of house or better. If I'm going to have a good life, My kids need to go to this school or better. So all these requirements for life, What they do is they require us to work. They require us to work really hard. I mean, We all know people that work two, Three, Sometimes four jobs, A hundred hours a week, Constantly working so that someday they'll have the things that everyone else has that they think is important. But what's happened is we've been brainwashed. I mean, If you live, Say, In South Africa or if you live in, Say, California or if you live in Iceland, They're going to have different requirements for what we need to have the good life. And we've been brainwashed through the media, Through marketing, Through what our peers have and what they get. And they tell us what's awesome. And we hear about how everyone has something else and how we want it too. And we should have that. Otherwise, Our lives just are not very successful. Now, I know the listeners to this podcast can be a little bit more sophisticated than that, But even in the sophisticated world of health, It can be tricky. I mean, We have to have organic grass on our lawns. We have to have no pesticides anywhere within a hundred miles of our house. We have to live in a smog-free environment. I mean, On and on it can go so that in order for us to survive, We're spending a half million dollars a year just to get by. I mean, It can be pretty crazy on that extreme too. It's just brainwashing, But we need to acknowledge it's impacting us greatly and it's affecting our ability to create time. Time we need just to be happy, To find peace and happiness in the here and now. That's what we need. We don't need that new Gucci watch or we don't need a bedroom for every one of our kids. They can share a bedroom if they have to in order for us to find time for happiness. I mean, Wouldn't it be such a greater gift to show our kids us being happy and enjoying life instead of stressing out, Getting all anxious and worried because we can't keep up with the bills because we're trying to keep up with everyone else and we're so unhappy because we get home so late? I mean, It just goes on and on and on and it's very tricky because we don't notice it. It's very subtle. It just happens. So all the things that we seek, What we really need to seek is time. For me, Two things happened to me when I was young. I was in college and one summer I worked very hard at this factory. It was an exhausting job. I mean, It was truly a hundred hours a week and I worked really hard but that money allowed me for the next summer to go to Europe for a summer and travel throughout Europe. I traveled very cheaply sleeping on trains, Staying in youth hostels, But I really got to delve into the culture of Europe and I discovered something there. This was over 30 years ago, But I really discovered something that I noticed, An environment that I hadn't been exposed to, A conditioning that I hadn't realized back here in the U. S. So besides getting to go to Europe for a summer, The next thing that happened was I observed that Europeans, For the most part, Lived very differently than we did here in the U. S. I know things have changed over the last 30 years and some things are still much better there than here in the U. S. But the thing I noticed is almost everyone I met when they had jobs and they were working in their careers, They took off six weeks a year or more. And here in the U. S. We typically get two weeks a year and sometimes people don't even take those two weeks. Well, I decided something at that point. I said, I like this. I think this is a better way to live life. So what I did was I came back and decided to do that and I really held by that rule my entire work career. I always take at least six weeks off every year. Now I know we cannot do this because we work for companies and that's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with that. But companies give vacation time. They give sick leave. They give lots of things. I mean, When I go on vacation, I don't get paid. When you work for a company, You're getting paid. But make sure you're taking those vacations. And once you've been at a company for a while, At least here in the U. S. , They do start giving you a lot more than two weeks. We can get up to four to six weeks a year. But I'm amazed at how many people don't take that time. I remember even growing up in Iowa, My father was pretty good about taking vacations, Though he worked for a company, But he would definitely every summer take off time. And we would go camping on the weekends too. But I remember that my friends never went away in the summer. Their dads would just stay home and do projects around the house, Like paint their house or put in a new patio. But they almost all never took vacations. I mean, They could have. Camping was almost free, But they didn't. It wasn't a financial decision. It was just what they did. They worked and that's what they did. They worked and now their kids work and their grandkids work. But we're here to change that. We're here to live and we need time to live so we do need to make time for living. But I know some people may be thinking, Well, I just don't have the time or the money to get away, Even for a week every year. But there's so many ways we can take time. Just by taking our full lunch at break, Just by going for a walk in nature when we get home instead of turning on the television, Just by spending time with people that we love instead of distracting ourselves by countless endless activities where we never slow down. Now, Of course, There are people listening to this podcast that have lots of time. You may be retired, You may be unemployed, You may be working part time, Lots of things could be going on, But it's like having gold. Imagine having gold, The gold currency of happiness. And instead of spending that gold, What we do with it is we use it for a paperweight or we use it to prop up some books on our bookshelf. I mean, Of course we can squander time. And so we have to ask ourselves, Am I using this time well? Am I doing things that we talk about in this podcast to improve our lives? Time is the gold standard of happiness. We need it. But if we have time and we squander it, It's of no use. So we have to say, Am I implementing these things to be healthy? For example, Again, I like to compare things to physical. If we physically want to be in shape and have lots of time to work out, Great. But if we don't do it, Then what's the point? There are certain things we have to do in order to be happy and maintain happiness. That's what this podcast is all about. There's well over a hundred episodes now of things we can do to drastically improve our lives. But if we don't do them, Then we're just wasting that free time. And we can do that. Lots of people do. They may come home and have lots of free time. They get inebriated every night just to numb themselves. I think that's the main way people squander time. They're so overwhelmed by life. They do, In a sense, Shut down. They cut back from life, But they don't begin to live life. They learn to numb themselves from life. And that isn't going to be good for us either. A lot of people don't do that. So we have to ask ourselves, I have time, But how am I using it? Am I using it well? Well, We are listening to this podcast today because we want to have the beautiful lives that we all are capable of. But today, We may be really off track and have a long way to go until we reach a life that few people can ever dream of. We truly can have beautiful lives. But what we can do today is to begin to make small steps. First step, The big step, Is make space for happiness. It takes time to be happy. There are very specific things we have to do. Let's create the time where we can learn them. Perhaps one thing we can do, Just as a suggestion, Is in the morning when we're getting ready for work or driving to work or in the evening when we're closing the day, We spend a little time to listen to a couple episodes of the Happiness Podcast. If this is helping you, I really try to give very specific things that we can do here to find happiness and learn about them and start implementing them. It does take time. We have to recondition ourselves from the brainwashing we're getting from the world and our upbringing. It's incredibly strong, But we can change that brainwashing by reconditioning our minds to live a life of happiness. My experience in Europe radically changed my life. If we start learning things that are essential for happiness and begin implementing them, Our lives too will begin to change. And with time, With time, Our lives can be beautiful. Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast. If you are finding these podcasts helpful, I'd love a review from you. You can leave one on the site that you're listening to this podcast on, Or you can go to happinesspodcast. Org. That's happinesspodcast. Org. There's a lot of information there about happiness. Also, There's an icon called Testimonials. Just click on it, Follow it through, And it will leave you three places where you can leave your comments. Until next time, Accept what is, Love what is.

Reviews

This is so helpful. Thank you.

Lovely reassurance for this morning 🥰

I hadn't thought that being very mindful mutta f how I use my time is really so important 🤔 it gave a lot to think about.

Thank you Dr Puff. I enjoy both your podcasts & these episodes on Insight Timer. It really helps to hear your voice & the simple, yet very valuable lessons you teach in these sessions.

Thank you.

Creat time for happiness, such a precious advice! Thank you.