You can't think your way into happiness.
I once decided to be happy.
Quite a few years ago, as arrogant as it may seem, I truly thought that I had solved happiness. I had been contemplating the meaning of happiness and had a Eureka moment. The insight I was so proud of was simple: True happiness is a choice.
It was a bold yet empowering claim. Because if it's true, it means that all of us are personally responsible for our own happiness, regardless of the circumstances our lives may entail.
The way I came to this conclusion was very logical. I started by making a distinction between what most people consider to be happiness, which is simply pleasure or any temporary good feeling, and what I defined as True Happiness: The sincere, overall contentment with one's life.
At any given moment, our life as a whole can be seen as our past, present, and future.
And we can:
Choose to be content with our past by learning from it so deeply that we no longer wish it to be any different.
Choose to be content with our future by designing the future we want to have.
Choose to be content with our present by consciously choosing the right attitude for any given situation.
Makes sense, right?
Well, I actually tried it and surprisingly enough, I was extremely happy and content! For about four days.
So why did it stop working? Did something happen? Was there something wrong with my formula?
It's not like there was a specific moment or occurrence that made me unhappy. In fact, I only noticed after a week or so that my four-day "high" had passed. Life had gone on as usual.
Looking back now, it is more than obvious to me what had happened and why it didn't work. Simply put, I had been on a power trip. Not a power trip over others but a power trip over myself. A classic case of inner division.
In order for my formula to work, there must be a constant and vigilant mental process running to monitor and control my attitude and contentedness. As the experiment has shown, this is not sustainable or wise.
As empowering and clarifying as learning from our past, planning for our dreams, and being aware of our attitude may be, they were not the secret pieces of the happiness puzzle I had thought they were.
So... what is happiness? Who is to say? If there's anything I've learned, it's that you can't think your way into happiness.