Don't Delay Your Happiness - Reality Check Podcast #179

We have a tendency to believe that happiness will come ‘when we make it’. In this way, we delay our happiness to some future state. The problem is that we live the majority of life in the pursuit, and when we finally do arrive, our happiness is short-lived. Thus, we risk living a life where we are delaying our happiness, and never actually enjoying it, or the present moment. But the good news is that once we recognise this process, we can start enjoying the journey as well as the destination.

Transcript

Welcome to the Reality Check Podcast.

I'm Zachary Phillips.

I want to talk about the idea that we never truly arrive,

Or I suppose the concept of delaying our happiness to some undefined or even defined future state.

It's very easy for us to look at our lives as we are now and want,

Crave,

Desire something more.

You know,

A new job,

A new car,

A partner or a better partner,

A better life.

Want something different to achieve a personal physical financial goal.

Basically to be somewhere else,

To get something more.

And then we're like,

Okay,

Well when I've got that thing,

I'll be happy.

When I'm there,

I'll be happy.

When I've made it,

I'll be happy.

If only I have this,

I'll be happy.

But then inevitably,

We either don't get it or even if we do get it,

We're a different person at that time and we get a little bit of joy,

But the joy quickly dissipates.

And I'll prove it to you.

Think of what you wanted a few years ago or 10 years ago.

I'm sure that you have some or all of those things.

You've definitely got some of those things,

But now you're a different person with different problems with different needs,

Desires and wants.

Now you're used to having that thing.

Your life has upgraded.

You got the job,

But now you want a pay rise or you want a new car or a new house.

It's very easy to think that getting something will fix all of our problems,

But the reality is it won't.

My example is when I was 16,

I moved out of home.

I was surviving off government handouts and charity and working.

It was a tough existence just to get through school.

I wanted to live in a place that felt safe.

I wanted to be able to enjoy my life.

I wanted to have a job that I enjoyed.

There was a bunch of things that I wanted.

Now,

I have a lot of those things,

But now I've got different problems.

I've got a family.

I've got a partner.

I do feel safe.

I've got a job I like,

But there's all these other things that I want.

I wouldn't mind getting a car.

I wouldn't mind living in a house that I own.

There's things that I would like to have that I don't have.

There's goals that I would like to achieve that I haven't yet achieved.

It's very easy for me to go,

Okay,

Well,

When I've got those things,

I'll be happy.

Just like back in the day,

I thought when I had the things I've got now,

I'd be happy.

If I delay my happiness to a future state,

Chances are I will not be that happy.

Chances are that there'll be a momentary for a few minutes,

A few hours,

A day where I'll be elated,

Where I'll be good,

But then these cravings will come back.

So what do I do?

What's the answer here?

There's a couple of responses.

The first one is,

As always,

Mindfulness meditation.

When our mind wanders away,

When it starts craving,

Starts desiring something,

Rather than falling into it and instantly just living in that craving sensation,

We can instead take a step back,

Note that we're having that thought,

Appreciate that thought,

And maybe even set those things up as a goal,

But not become associated with it.

It's like,

Yeah,

It would be good to have that thing.

Cool.

I'm going to be over here focusing on my breath in the present moment.

That relates to the second thing,

Which is gratitude for your life now.

What do you have in your life now that you're appreciative of?

What is good?

What do you have that you wanted?

What do you have that you thought you'd never have?

What are you doing that brings you joy?

What are the people in your life like that bring you joy?

What's good about your life?

And there will be something good about your life.

When your mind wanders to the future,

To this craving state,

Yeah,

That's telling you something,

That there's always some way to go.

There's always goals to hunt for.

I agree.

I'm massively advocating to pursue your dreams,

Provided that you do take some time to live in the moment and enjoy it.

Enjoy the process.

Enjoy what you're doing and how you're living and what you're going through right now,

Because really,

This is your life,

Right?

If you delay your gratification and appreciation and acceptance for some future state,

It's a recipe for disaster.

I don't know the best way to judge life success,

But I'm fairly certain it has very little to do with income or the stuff you own.

I think it's more likely to do with your general level of happiness or general level of suffering.

If you could tally up the moments of your mind that are positive feelings,

Negative feelings,

And neutral feelings.

I would imagine that if you were 51% or more positive or neutral,

More of the positivity or neutral states compared to the negative states,

That seems like a successful life.

But if we're always craving the future,

It kind of doesn't matter what we've got.

You can have far more than I do and be depressed and be miserable and be craving more.

You can have far less than I do and still be in a good mental state.

Now this isn't discounting the legitimate suffering that people have,

But the fact of the matter is,

Is no matter where you are,

No matter who you are,

You will feel a level of suffering because suffering comes from craving.

It comes from desiring something different.

So even if your life is objectively better,

If you're in that 1%,

Now by the 1% I don't mean the 99% versus 1% of richness in the world,

The inequality sort of thing.

I mean if you're in a Western country that's got a society that's functional,

That has roads that operate and hospitals that work and the lights that don't vaulter and you're not at war and you know you have opportunities,

Or at least some opportunities for advancement,

For growth,

You can find work,

You can put food on the table,

Right?

Even if you've got all of those things,

You're generally healthy.

There's still things that you're going to want,

There's still things you don't like about yourself,

There's still things you're going to crave and therefore you'll still be suffering.

I had this realization,

I was playing with my four year old and it just clicked.

It's like,

This is the time.

You know,

You've got a family.

These are the things you'll look back on with fondness,

With joy.

So my gods act,

Like be in the moment right now,

Live this life right now.

What are you waiting for?

Another example was,

An out of state friend invited us,

The family,

Up for a holiday.

My instant reaction to most things is to say no because I'm just waiting for some future time when I've got enough income to support myself,

When my mental state's fine,

When the lights are all green.

The lights are never going to be all green.

And yeah,

It'll be a hassle to go.

Yeah,

There'll be bad points about going,

But the goodness of doing it will far outweigh the bad,

Both for myself and for my family,

The joy it'll bring my son,

All that sort of stuff.

Because it's very easy to delay gratification,

Delay living life,

Delay relaxation for some time in the future.

You know,

What's the point of living a disciplined life?

What's the point of living a structured life if you don't have the opportunity to break it,

Or if you can't take some time to actually enjoy the fruits of your labour?

The fruits of my labour in this instance is,

You know,

The joy of the family using the physical things that I own,

Of enjoying my healthy body.

Because everything's going to change,

And that's reality.

And there's always something more to crave.

So I think the best approach is to live in the moment,

To embrace the moment,

To be mindful,

To notice your thoughts coming and going.

And when they go to craving,

Acknowledge them and return your focus back to the present moment,

Back to the breath.

So once again I just want to highlight that I'm doing the Mindful Mornings,

6.

40am Australian Eastern Standard Time on Instagram Live.

You can find it at Zach P Phillips,

And on YouTube and on IGTV for the replays.

I'm doing it every day,

Trying to at least.

I'm up to session 9 as a recording,

And by the time this comes out it'll be quite a long way along there.

It's all based on the stuff from my book,

Mindfulness a Guidebook to the Present Moment.

And basically the idea is that I want to develop a little community here.

I want to grow.

I want to give other people the gift of mindfulness.

Because I believe that if we could all be a little bit more mindful,

The world would be a better place.

Yeah,

There would still be bad stuff.

Yeah,

Stuff would happen.

But if we could approach the solutions mindfully from a calmer,

Detached perspective where we're observing the situation and not responding out of emotionality or fear or anger or any of those sort of things,

At least a little bit,

We'd be able to approach the problems that we all face,

That humanity faces,

In a better,

More enlightened state.

I'm not talking about enlightened as in nirvana.

I'm talking about enlightened as a humanist perspective,

As approaching things from not just our selfish,

Objective,

Personal,

Sorry,

Subjective personal point of view.

We'd be able to look at things more as they are,

For what they are,

And address them from there,

Without such a personalised investment in it.

And if we could all be enjoying the present moment a bit more so,

We wouldn't be so desperate to fill the gaping hole in our minds with more stuff.

So I don't know,

If you're interested in these mindfulness sessions,

Like I said,

6.

40am Australian Eastern Standard Time on Instagram at ZachPPhillips,

Or consider grabbing a copy of my book,

Mindfulness a Guy Book to the Present Moment.

I'm putting it out as a paperback ebook and audiobook,

But I'm also releasing it chapter by chapter for free online.

I'm hoping to release a chapter each week basically so that you can get started now.

I don't want to put something as valuable as meditation behind a paywall,

But that said,

If you want to own it all right now,

If you want to enjoy having a copy and getting it and supporting what I'm doing,

The options are there too.

Anyway,

Have a great day,

And I really mean that,

Like,

Have a great day.

Find something today that you enjoy and embrace it,

Live in it,

Be in that moment,

Even if it's only for one minute.

Yeah?

Cheers.

Reviews

I felt like I just had a quality pep talk from a dear friend! Uplifting and real! Thank you!

Wonderful reminder Zach, of all I have to be happy and grateful for...