How To Stop Destroying Your Happiness

This talk discusses our tendency to seek perfection and possessions to our own detriment. There is no end to our desire and no limit to the impact of chance and time on stopping us from attaining said desire. This conflict creates a situation where we may find ourselves forever striving and thus forever unhappy. However, we can balance this through the practice of acceptance & mindfulness.

Transcript

I want to suggest a logical solution to a long-time philosophical problem, One that a lot of religions, Meditative practices, And philosophical theories approach. It's the problem of suffering, It's the problem of attempting to change our lives, To strive for things again and again and again, To attain happiness with stuff, Money, Possessions, Events, Because fundamentally, It's flawed. There's a hole in the logic that needs to be addressed. But right off the bat, Let's just be real here. You know, Unless you've attained a level of enlightenment that most people can only read about, There's a certain level of material possessions that do constitute a direct relationship to lower stress and happiness. Studies have shown that income up to a certain point does, In fact, Increase happiness. Money does, In fact, Increase happiness. But after a certain point, Once your material possessions have been met, Once you can pay the bills, Once you can feel safe and comfortable with that, Any more money, Any more stuff doesn't add any impact to your overall happiness levels. Now, That amount varies based on person to person, And it varies based on country to country. It's a relative scale. But there is an amount of money that, Once reached, You will no longer derive much, If any, Happiness from more. So, If we hold that fact in our back pocket, We can continue. Because let's say you don't believe that fact. Let's say it's like, Yeah, But more, I want more. Fair enough. We have an innate evolutionary drive to want more, Because the more we have, The safer we ultimately are. Makes sense. We have a drive to be safe, To live a life that we can pass on our genes, To just be able to persist and continue. Cool. But let's say, Let's do a thought experiment and say you are the king, Queen, Emperor, Whatever, Ruler of the world. Every wish is granted, Unlimited money, Unlimited stuff. The problem is, Is that things still will change, No matter how much you acquire. Time still continues. Life still continues. And anyone and anything with free will or random chance will forever be pulling potentially against you. There is no way, No one human ever, That has ever lived a life where they've gotten everything they've wanted. Even the biggest stars, The most powerful rulers, Everyone, Everyone is striving for something to change, To alter. And ultimately, We all pass. Death takes us all. Therefore, No matter what happens, There will be things perpetually changing. Our bodies age and evolve and so does everyone else's. So things are always changing. The point I'm making here is, Is that if we strip all of this right back down to you in this moment, The person listening to this right now, You will have things that you want. You will have things that you want to attain, Goals to attain, Possessions to acquire. If only I just did this, If only I just had that. Problem is, Is when you have those things, There'll be more things to want and there'll be forever more things to want. Then your health situation changes. Oh, You want to be healthy again. Then someone else, You know, Does something. Oh, I wish they were doing this. Someone enters your life, Someone leaves your life. Things forever change. Thus, It is impossible to attempt to fill the gap of happiness with stuff, With things, Even with attainments. You know, Oh, When I win this prize, Win this award, Sell this many things. Because what happens the moment you attain that trophy? What then? It is a very rare person indeed, If not impossible, For someone to attain the trophy, You know, Become the best in the world, Perform, Accomplish their goal and be satiated there and just be happy for the rest of their life. That does not happen. When you graduate from school, University, Whatever, When you win the tournament, What next? You get married, You have kids. What next? The next time you achieve something, Just note the part of your brain that almost instantly says, Okay, Now what? The next time you win something, Notice the part of your brain that says, It should have been more. Those thoughts are there and they're there forever and they stay there. The reason I'm saying this is that if we know this is truth, Then our pursuit of happiness needs to come from accepting change, Not from trying to change things. Because if we're going to be forever trying to juggle more and more balls and it's impossible, We will drop them. Happiness will fall away. But what if instead we could accept that life is change? If we could accept that our goal is to attain a level of acceptance with where we're at, What's going on? To know that nothing will ever be perfect and to be okay with nothing ever being perfect. Now, Isn't that interesting? Accepting imperfection, Accepting the fact that we're always going to be striving, Accepting the present moment, Let's embrace right now for what it is. My day to day isn't perfect. The weather isn't ideal. It's cold where I am. But the heat is warmth. When I go and sit next to it, There's some joy to be found in that small moment, In the mundane. My son's smile, His attention, His questions, I could be annoyed by his questions, I've got stuff to do. Or I could go, Okay, This moment will never happen again, Can I be content in this moment? Oh, My body's sore from the exercise I did last night. That soreness is annoying, But that soreness also tells me that I have lived and that I lived yesterday. Do we see what we mean here? Trying to change things perpetually forever won't necessarily work. Our goal, Everyone's goal, Shouldn't be to change things, It should be to accept things as they are. Now obviously this leads us to the different question of, But if I accept things, Am I accepting a bad life? So this is where you've got to sort of find that, This is where the juggling act is, The dichotomy. Accept what is happening, But take steps to improve. Trend upwards, But realize that the trend isn't a straight line, That trending line goes up and down, But diagonally facing upwards. You're trying to improve yourself, Improve the things around you, But you're also accepting that things change and eventually it will all end. So with that goal in mind, We're doing the self-care, We're exercising, We're meditating, We're speaking to people, We're taking steps to improve better habits, All of that good stuff. We're embracing the moment as it comes. When bad stuff happens, We're okay with that too. Stop chasing perfection. Stop trying to change everything and start accepting your life as it is for what it is right now. And that will lead you to a deeper state of contentment than any one thing, One possession, One accomplishment will ever give you. Because hey, Once you climb to the top of that mountain, You have to climb back down again, Don't you? And plan your next trip. Have a great day.