Can You Find Happiness?

Gabriel Bar-Sawme
Sep 8, 2018 · 3 min read

“If I only had more money…”

“If I only were able to buy that house…”

“If I only could find the perfect partner…”

“If my children would listen to me more…”

“If I only would lose some weight…”

“If my husband/wife could look at me with desire…”

“If only my company went better…”

In popular media happiness is framed as the fulfillment of something that is lacking. If you are unhappy it is because you lack something significant and important. The most important steps in finding happiness is first of all identifying what you are lacking. The next step is to find a manual, a way, to get to that which you are lacking. Happiness is framed as something you find, as if it is something you have lost or as if it is something you have never had.

This way of framing what happiness is, is dangerous. It is dangerous because it is a misunderstanding of what it is to begin with. Happiness is not based on a lack of something. Because everybody lacks something if you compare yourself to others. Unless you are Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos you most certainly have less money than a lot of people in the world. So happiness is not a lack, lack which you can fix by getting more of something. By the way, this way of thinking is putting the locus of control outside of you, something out there is needed to make you happy.

Happiness begins with a change in your mindset. A mindset which puts the locus of control inside you. A mindset in which you experience that everything you need, you have. There is no lack, whatsoever. Because lack of something is always relative, as mentioned above. But experiencing this lack of lack or a sense of fulfillment, is a mindset, not an objective reality. Because the experience of lack is also an experience, it is based on a belief that in order to be happy you must have more and be more. I believe that being bombarded with advertisement and information finding happiness means having more does not help. Remember that advertisement in which you see that skinny woman or that muscular man who looks content and happy? Happy because the advertisement sends you the implicit message that there is a link between whatever the ad is selling and that person’s happiness. This is how advertisement and marketing works, influencing your subconscious through framing.

So if you cannot find happiness, then what? Well, I think you can experience happiness, with a focus on experiencing. I find it strange to talk about happiness as an object you find. It is an experience, let’s first of all make that clear. It is not something that you find.

Happiness is something you experience. You can help yourself experiencing happiness through practicing healthy habits that allow you to experience happiness.

What do I mean by happiness, we never defined this initially. We can agree that happiness is an experience and that experience is of course produced by your mind. Happiness is a sense of well-being. My argument is that anybody can be happy and have a sense of well-being even if you are in pain.

So what is this practice?

  1. Challenge your scarcity beliefs that are covered, usually in emotions that leave bad residues. It is your experience of scarcity that makes you feel like you are lacking something which leads to feeling unhappy. Do this meditating. When meditating, pay attention to your thoughts, to your response in your body, to your emotions. Feel all your emotions, name them. Name your thoughts. Name what you feel in your body.
  2. Commit to not to only challenging your negative thoughts but to shifting to focusing on how the opposite of a negative thought is also true. If something can be framed using a framework of lack, then you can look at the same situation using a frame of finding what is enough, what is good.

While I believe that happiness ultimately has to do with experience and how you frame your own experience and that you can change your experience by framing it differently through meditation and challenging your thinking, I also believe that there are other things that are needed and important. There are at least two things which are important in addition to this: physical workout and close relationships.

Sweating helps your mind to stay healthy and so do relationships, especially relationships that are of high quality.

So no, you cannot find happiness, but you can practice happiness.

Practice away!

Gabriel Bar-Sawme

Written by

Social worker, theologian, phd candidate, writer, runner, father, husband. Committed to helping people see the good in themselves.

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