About Happiness – 12 Ideas

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About Hap­pi­ness — The key to hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment: hap­pi­ness is deter­mined by your intention.

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The key to hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment is
deter­mined by your intention.

This was one of those “Of course!” moments for me. I real­ized that one could ana­lyze the first two (hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment) only on the basis of the last one (inten­tion). But it’s a bit com­pli­cat­ed, so let’s unpack.

You have to listen to me…

I ask a father, “What is your inten­tion for your kids?”

He replies, “I want them to be happy.”

I ask, “What does hap­pi­ness look like?”

He: “They lis­ten to me and do what they are told.”

Me: “How do you get them to lis­ten and to obey?”

He: “I yell at them, until they do what I want them to.”

Me: “Are they hap­py, and are they doing what you want?”

He: “No, so I yell louder.”

Me: “Are you hap­py / content?”

He: “No. but a father has to sac­ri­fice for his kids.”

And on and on.

Most peo­ple have not unpacked their inten­tions, and have no clue what hap­pi­ness / con­tent­ment looks like for them.

They are sure, however, that it involves someone or something outside of themselves doing things differently.

By the bye, the wife of the above guy told me she wouldn’t be hap­py until he stopped yelling at the kids, and besides, she was­n’t sure why she mar­ried him in the first place. But had to stay, “For the kids.”

I did this same dance with my ther­a­pist back in 1996, when she asked me if I was hap­py, and I replied with a list of things I need­ed first. She said, “OK, you have those things. Are you happy?” 

I came up with anoth­er list.

Moral of the story? I was fixated on the things I needed to eventually by happy / content, and the list always led to… you guessed it… more lists.

I had to learn what I call the “les­son of pres­ence.” When I brought my atten­tion from lists and future hap­pi­ness, I became aware that I was doing well, right now.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what’s really necessary is a relentless, 100% commitment to being present.

And a chief aspect of pres­ence is know­ing, with crys­tal clar­i­ty, what games I am play­ing with myself.

In the dad’s case, above, I’m sure he was used to most peo­ple let­ting up on him after he said he want­ed his kids to be hap­py, to lis­ten, and to be well behaved. 

Most peo­ple hear plat­i­tudes like that and drop the enquiry.

Indeed, most peo­ple drop the enquiry as they bump up against their own, flawed platitudes.

One client decid­ed not to be depressed any more. I replied that she’d have to end­less­ly pay atten­tion to her moods. This wasn’t pleas­ing to her, as she thought that sim­ply decid­ing not to be depressed should fix everything. 

Pay­ing atten­tion to how she depressed her­self wasn’t inter­est­ing to her. Because of this, her actu­al inten­tion was to pre­tend she was “cured” while ignor­ing her­self, her way of being, and her moods.

In each case, there is the story we tell ourselves (and others) and what lies beneath it—the real story.

In the dad’s case, the hid­den sto­ry was, “Dads keep their kids in line by yelling at them—otherwise, they are out of control.” 

Most peo­ple don’t exam­ine this hid­den sto­ry or moti­va­tion, and since they hide it from them­selves, they can’t under­stand why their plat­i­tudes (“I want my kids to be hap­py”) nev­er come true.

A 100% commitment to self discovery requires that we challenge our platitudes, to see what props them up.

Peo­ple tell me the lat­est dis­as­ter sto­ry, and total­ly miss that the sto­ry is just the lat­est in a long string of the same sto­ry.

Many peo­ple I know, for exam­ple, are “fix­ers.” They assure me that they will be con­tent when the present “fix” takes hold. 

How­ev­er, they miss that “fix­ers,” by def­i­n­i­tion, need some­one or some­thing to fix.

So, even if the fix takes, if they con­tin­ue to be a “fix­er,” they have to cre­ate some­thing new to fix, or break some­thing they already fixed. Just to have some­thing to do.

And since hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment, for them, hinges on the plat­i­tude of hav­ing every­thing fixed, (while umcon­scious­ly con­tin­u­ing to break stuff,) they nev­er get to “there.”

Our approach to all of this is relentless self-examination and here-and-now living.

The key is con­tained in the words self, and here-and-now.

Either alone or with a ther­a­pist, you must get a han­dle on your sto­ries, dreams, wants, and eva­sions. In oth­er words, all of those exter­nal things you blame for how you are need to be let go of, and then set aside.

For exam­ple, with the dad, above, the work was at the lev­el of the final belief: in his case, “My job is to yell at the kids until they obey.”

You nar­row it down: “I must fix every­one.” “All men leave me.” “I need every­one to love me and think I’m won­der­ful.” Whatever. 

Once you get to the bot­tom of the sto­ries, you’ll see that you have a belief about how oth­ers (things or peo­ple) ought to be, and will see that you are repeat­ing this theme over and over, and nev­er get­ting any­where with it.

Once you see what you are doing, you can take respon­si­bil­i­ty for it, and then ask, “What can I do, right now, to bring peace, con­tent­ment, and hap­pi­ness to my life?”

If your answer has any­thing to do with some­thing out­side of your­self and in some time-frame oth­er than now, go back to the draw­ing board.

In the end, it’s all about dis­cov­er­ing your own lev­el of com­mit­ment to your walk–your path–and your lev­el of hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment. This begins by under­stand­ing that hap­pi­ness and con­tent­ment are self-deter­mined, 100% of the time.

It’s your walk, your path, and if you are bogged down, you walked into the bog.

Ulti­mate­ly, it is pos­si­ble to get to the point of Sim­ple Pres­ence, that state of grace where you just are. No goals, no things, and oth­ers to fix, just being in the moment and appre­ci­at­ing the moment for what it is. Noth­ing to do, noth­ing to even­tu­al­ly become.

This is liv­ing at its finest.

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Series Nav­i­ga­tion

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