How to be happy: life without suffering
Have you ever wondered why it gets more difficult to be happy in life as you grow older? It was so much easier to be happy when we were young. Even though we didn’t get to make a lot of decisions for ourselves when we were young, it was still much easier for us to snap out of a foul mood than when we are adults. There was this space within each one of us that was unreachable by anyone but ourselves . When we were in this sacred space, magic happened and we never dwelled on things that were outside of our control. At some point in our life, we started paying more attention to the external world and slowly overtime we lost access to this inner dimension. It’s still there but we just cannot see it. We might have forgotten about the space that once existed within us but we never forget the feeling of being whole and complete just by being who we are. We start searching and gaining short-lived moments of happiness. We make being happy our goal of life and we struggle to achieve that goal. Happiness never lasts and it has become a precious prize that we have to work so hard to earn. Happiness should be our natural state of being and not a goal.
The ultimate goal of everything we do is to be happy in life. It could be as simple as enjoying a succulent meal or it could be as grandiose as changing the world. One may seem more noble than the other according to the society’s opinion but the motivation behind both actions is the same - we want to feel happy. If everything we do is to be happy in life, why are we still so unhappy 90% of the time? Why isn’t being happy the constant state of being for us? Instead, so many people suffer from anxiety, fear and depression.
Here are 4 causes for the emotional stress we experience and what we can do to change our lives and live happily.
Relying on external sources to feel happy
How many times have you thought - “If I could have this one thing, I would be so happy”? Once you have the thing that makes you happy, how long does it take for you to move on to the next object to sustain the feeling of being happy? In one of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, Larry David surprised me with such wisdom that would perfectly illustrate this point. Larry David and his wife Sheryl were touring a house with an ocean view that they were considering buying. While everyone was captivated by the ocean view and was immediately sold, Larry David blurted out “I would get used to the view in 3 days.”
Just like the house with an ocean view, the happiness that derives from external objects/events never lasts. Everything is transient and everything is out of our control. It’s no wonder our mood fluctuates so much when we depend on the ever-changing sources for happiness. It’s not that we shouldn’t have goals and make achievements in life. Desire is good because it motivates us to fulfill purposes in life. It only becomes a problem when we desire unconsciously. When we desire unconsciously, we suffer immensely when the outcome is different than our expectation. Some common signs for unconscious desire include shopping sprees or any binging activities. Here is an example of conscious desire versus unconscious desire.
Unconscious desire: I’m craving burgers and I need to have a burger right now. If I don’t have it, I can’t stop thinking about it and I can’t focus on anything for the rest of the day.
Conscious desire: I feel like enjoying a burger. I will get a burger if I pass by a good burger place today. If not, that’s ok too. I’ll have it another day.
When we desire unconsciously, we become slaves to desire and our mood depends entirely on the outcome which we can’t control. On the other hand, when we’re conscious, we are free and we are in control of how we feel.
2. Forgetting about your true self
When people ask “who are you”, what answers do you usually give? I used to struggle to give any answer to that question. For the longest time, I thought it was because I didn’t have anything I was proud of about myself to represent who I am. But now I know that it’s because who I really am is not something that can be described in words. By default, we explain to people about who we are with our names, our countries or our job titles. But these are just the roles we play and the identities we pick up or given by other people. We become unhappy because at some point in our life we start to believe that all of these made-up identities are us.
First, the sense of “I” is created by the ego. Ego is not just about arrogance or confidence. Ego is a separate self that co-exists with our true self in order to survive in this physical reality. It latches on to both tangible and intangible things to create a sense of existence through thoughts and beliefs. The process is known as identification. So the version of who we are that’s created by the ego is essentially made up of accumulated information gathered and retained by our brain. This could include any random information and opinions of other people.
Ego is an important survival tool in the social hierarchy. As human beings become more reliant on communities for survival, our ego also deepens. It drives us to desire social acceptance and recognition so we don’t become an outsider who doesn’t have resources to survive. Our ego registers feedback from the environment and people starting from the very early stage of our lives. We get encouragement from parents or teachers for doing something that is considered “good” from their point of view. We receive punishment for doing things others don’t agree with. Overtime, we’re trained to think a certain way and believe in certain values that are accepted by our social groups.
The ego is not a problem unless we let it take control of us. Ego is just a form of thought in our mind. We’re not our mind and we’re not our body. There are different names to describe who we are/our true self - the consciousness, the soul, the spirit but words are just pointers. To truly know who we are, we need to experience the existence of our being. And this is not something that will happen overnight for most people. It’s a gradual process. Through meditation, yoga and being diligent about keeping still throughout our daily life, we’ll start to feel the presence of our being. Then, we will remember who we really are.
As Eckhart Tolle beautifully put it, “I think therefore I am” really should be the opposite. “I am therefore I think.” The former suggests we’re controlled by our mind. I am therefore I think means we use our mind to function. Our mind is a powerful tool for survival so we need to use it instead of being used by it.
The ego and the true self need to co-exist and help each other to complete the lessons that we’re supposed to learn in each life time. For most of us, our ego takes over completely and the true self doesn’t even have a chance to shine. Let your true self connect with you and work with you by making space throughout your day. For example, focus on your breaths for a few minutes each time as you go through you day. We can connect with the true self when we are free of thoughts. It does not matter if the moment is brief. At first, it will feel like a competition between the ego and the true self. A bad day for the ego is a good day for the true self. When we remember who we are and accept the ego, love ourselves without judgments, being happy all the time is not a dream but reality.
3. Resisting the present moment
All there is to life is now - the present moment. The past exists in the present moment through our memories and the future exists in the present moment through our imagination. Most of us spend our days thinking about the past, dreaming about the future and letting life slip through us.
We suffer and we become unhappy because things do not go our way. We are unhappy because the present moment is not what we want it to be. For example, you want to be on a beach in Hawaii right now but instead you are sitting in your home office working until 10PM and it’s below freezing. By default, our choice is to resist the present moment because we want something else. We still perform the tasks but our attention is completely somewhere else. We feel sad, angry or irritated.
How do we be present when the present moment isn’t what we want? We surrender. We surrender to the situation, and we accept what’s happening as is and not labeling things as good or bad. The first step to surrendering is the hardest. You might be thinking “I didn’t ask to work for 18 hours everyday. How can I accept this?” Let’s put aside the label that working 18 hours everyday is bad for awhile. What are your options?
1. Quit this job and fly to Hawaii
2. Quit this job and find another job
3. Negotiate to work less hours
4. Continue to work 18 hours everyday until another opportunity present itself
You might not be in a position to choose 1, 2 or 3. Option 4 could be your only viable option at this moment. Again, we’re not judging the moment as good or bad. It is what it is. Trust that everything that we experience in life is designed to lead us to growth. Our ego does not understand this but the true self does. This moment is not what we “want” but it’s what we “need.” Think about things that you hated doing at the time but felt grateful for later in life. Surrendering is not easy. It takes more than will power for us to surrender and to be completely one with the present moment. This is exactly why it’s so important for our mental health to be able to connect with the true self. We need to be able to look beyond the day-to-day pleasure, indulgence and have faith in the creation of everything. The book, Journey of Souls, written by Michael Newton helped me understand the meaning of every obstacle in life and appreciate every interaction I have with people. Realizing that I’m merely a tiny spot in the universe makes defending my ego less important.
4. Focusing on lack instead of abundance
We tend to focus on things that we don’t have. It’s like a survival instinct that drives us to do more, do better, secure more resources, etc. If we don’t use this drive consciously, we will fall into the never-ending cycle of wanting and not having. Start by appreciating all that you have in life and it doesn’t matter how trivial they seem. I feel grateful for being alive for another day and that people whom I love are alive too. I feel grateful to be able to share my thoughts with others. We receive what we put out in the universe. If we keep telling the universe that we lack something, then the universe will give us exactly that - nothing. Simply shift your mindset and you’ll start noticing the synchronicity in your life. There are a few ways to change the way you think, from focusing on lack to noticing abundance.
Write down anything that you feel grateful for
Pay attention to nature and notice how ecosystems form to support lives
Do guided meditations that focus on abundance. I particularly liked Deepak Chopra’s 21 Days of Abundance Guided Meditation.
Learn and understand the universe, the creation of life and our purpose in this world. Here are some books I recommend -
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Journey of Souls by Michael Newton
Inner Engineering by Sadhguru
Small Graces The Quiet Gifts of Everyday Life by Kent Nerburn
The Law of One
