The Reason You Can’t “Find” Happiness.
One simple teaching that changed my outlook
When I was at one of the lowest points of my life I read “Joy” by Osho.
I was fresh out of a two year relationship, Coronavirus had sent the world in to a downward spiral of disaster, and, after weeks of isolation, I felt utterly stuck.
It was one of those ‘darkness before the dawn’ moments. The periods of time where you don’t feel like you have anything going for you.
I decided in my despair to read some spiritual guidance books. I spent hours browsing through Amazon best-seller lists and reading book reviews online to try and find something inspiring.
I’ve read all the viral self-help or guidance books, and sure, they did help. But I was looking for something different; and I found it.
I read “Joy” in one sitting. I couldn’t stop reading. As I read, I actually felt myself getting happier. I could feel joy returning to me. This bright sensation; a trusting feeling that even though I had hit a rough patch, everything was going to be okay.
The realization that my search was over, the game had ended, I didn’t have to look anymore. Happiness cannot be found. Without context, that sounds like a bad thing. But it’s not; and here’s why…
You see, to an extent, we’re all chasing happiness constantly throughout our lives. Sometimes we think we’ve found it for a second and then, just like that, it’s gone again.
A fleeting moment that we can’t get back, a rush that never lasts.
The moments fade and become just a memory of ‘better’ times. And on we go, chasing down our next happiness high.
How often do we think to ourselves… “when I achieve my goal, I’ll be happy.” When I land the job, I’ll be happy. When I make more money, I’ll be happy. When I start a family, then, surely, I’ll be happy. And when we finally reach those goals, we experience it. Just for one tantalizingly beautiful moment, we think our search is over… But it’s not. Because happiness slips away again, and again we are left looking for it. A hide-and-seek cycle that never ends.
And then I read Osho’s words, and it hit me…
We cannot find happiness, because there is nothing to be found. It is already here.
Suddenly, it made sense. It clicked. The ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ is a lie; there doesn’t need to be any ‘pursuit’. This isn’t a game of tag; this is life. Happiness is not a possession to be purchased, we can’t buy or sell it. We don’t even have to look for it. All we have to do is choose to see it.
Osho says, “Happiness happens. Perhaps that’s why you call it happiness — because it happens. You cannot manage it, you cannot manufacture it, you cannot arrange it. Happiness is something that is beyond your effort, beyond you. Happiness is always with you.”
As soon as I read those words, I tore a piece of paper out of a notebook, I wrote them down, and I stuck them to my fridge with a crappy old fridge magnet.
I read them, I believed them, and they changed me.
If you search everywhere for happiness, if you think that material objects or relationships or more zeros on your paycheck will help you find it, you’re wrong. It doesn’t mean that those things can’t bring you enjoyment, of course they can. You can experience pleasure through money or sex or food; but pleasure is not happiness. It’s a substitution (and don’t get me wrong, it can be awesome), but it’s not the real deal.
The type of happiness that lives within you and stays with you, even during hard times, now that’s the pièce de résistance.
The clarity of realization that maybe it was that simple, that there was nothing to find, happiness was already here, all I had to do was be open and receive it…
Life-changing.
“Happiness has nothing to do with anything… it is there, it does not come and go. It is always there. Just like your breathing, your heartbeat, the blood circulating in your body.” — Osho
