PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS..

Billions of people are chasing it every day. It’s like the Holy Grail for some. No matter how hard they search it seems to elude them. Imagine searching for something without and clues on how to find it. Where would you look? Who would you ask for help? We chase our dream job. We chase our dream car. We chase our dream spouse. We chase our ideal life. But are we chasing the right thing?

What happens when we find our dream job? What happens when we finally have enough money to buy the car we wanted since we were little? In the movies when the guy gets the girl everything fades to black. We assume that the couple goes off and lives happily ever after. Let’s play devil’s advocate for a second. People get laid off. Couples separate. Cars breakdown. So what’s left? I think the Holy Grail isn’t a car, a spouse, or a dream job. I think the Holy Grail we’re looking for is our happiness.

Without happiness why would anything else matter? We would come home to our dream spouse depressed and sad all the time. We would never feel like driving that new car because we would find some reason why we shouldn’t. Our dream job would slowly become just a job. Without happiness nothing would be as enjoyable as we think. So the pursuit has nothing to do with materialistic things or for that matter anyone else. The pursuit does have everything to do with us.

I talk to people every day. Some sad, some angry, some content, and some happy. The ones who are sad don’t understand why bad things happen to them. They spend their lives trying to figure out why me, instead of focusing on what now. The angry ones hate the situation there in but instead of trying to fix it they’d rather stew about why they can’t get a break in life. The content could care less either way. Life to them is a “run out the clock situation”, they don’t take chances because they don’t care about the results. All three of these different types of people refuse to chase happiness but desperately need it in their lives.

Now on the flipside the happy ones usually love what they do, love who their with, and attack each day with energy and enthusiasm. Their pursuit doesn’t end with one accomplishment. Their pursuit happens every day. The happy ones know that in an instant their state of mind can be tested. The happy ones are equipped with the key to the pursuit. They know the pursuit isn’t really a pursuit at all. The key is their understanding that the pursuit starts with us and ends with us.

How you think, how you feel, and how you handle life’s obstacles determine your happiness. When you do all three life is good. If you slack on any of the three it can affect your happiness. When people don’t like how they look what happens? Their shoulders slump, their confidence disappears, and in turn they get depressed. Their pursuit of happiness might be going to the gym but when the results don’t kick in right away, they return back to the same negative mindset. What they fail to realize is no gym can make you happy if you don’t allow it to.

When adversity hits us what happens to our pursuit? Do we stop the search all together? Does life throw an obstacle at us that we can no longer hurdle. No car is going to make you feel better about being laid off or separating from a spouse. It’s up to you to recover from adversity. Friends and family can make us feel better but ultimately it’s on us to get through it.

Why would we chase something that’s right in front of us? Why would we make the pursuit harder than it already is? Our happiness isn’t hiding; it’s waiting for us to see it