Be Happy with What You Have Today – Not What You Will Have in the Future
How do you find happiness? I recently read Psycho-Cybernetics
Maxwell starts off by a quote from Blaise Pascal. The philosopher Pascal says, “We are never living, but only hoping to live; and, looking forward always to being happy, it is inevitable that we never are so.”
Maxwell found that one of the most common causes of unhappiness is that people are attempting to live their lives on a deferred payment plan. They do not live nor do they enjoy life now, but wait for some future event to complete them and make them happy. For instance, people say, they will be happy when they get married, or when they get a better job, or when they get the children through college, or when they get a flat screen TV, or a shiny new car, or when they have completed some task or won some victory.
Invariably, they are disappointed that they do not feel happy when they finally acquire what they have been striving for. Instead, they feel empty. Happiness is a mental habit, a mental attitude. If it is not learned and practiced in the present, it is never experienced. It cannot be made contingent on solving some external problem. When one program is solved, another appears to take its place. Life is series of problems. If you are to be happy at all, you must be happy now, in the present, period. You will never find happiness because of some external event.
It is amazing how happy life can be when we make the decision to be happy. How do you do this? Practice gratitude for what you have now, not what you will have in the future.
Be Free!
Jeffrey Czajka
Instructor
Happiness is an inside job
Comment by Katie Brandt — April 29, 2009 @ 8:20 am
Very nice article. Thank you.
Comment by Maria — May 4, 2009 @ 4:28 am