I wrote this piece recently about how the world does not owe you happiness, and I relate to what you’re saying here. We definitely seem to follow a similar thought pattern. However, recently, I started to see past the emotions of immediate joy/elation/excitement and started to feel this ever elusive thing that people describe as “happiness”. It started to settle within me, a “state” as you describe above. I can only really describe it as this very strong foundation that makes the rest of the tumultuous, day to day feelings/emotions easier to handle. Perhaps you could call it “contentment” (which somehow gets a bad rap these days, maybe because it sounds a bit boring).
“Many people think excitement is happiness…. But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.” Thich Nhat Hanh
I have ups and downs but when I look across the past few years I would describe them as happy ones. I think getting older helped me a lot. Also eating better (I think your gut health has a lot to do with how happy you are. With all it’s neurons I see it as my second, simple brain ;) ).
But I very much accept that this could all change.
Thanks for the interesting article!
