Attempting
to pursue happiness is as effective as attempting to discover the pot of gold
at the end of a rainbow. The harder you try to find happiness, the more you
pursue it, the further out of your reach it will become. Happiness is never
something you pursue; it is something you choose to enjoy, because of internal
feelings of contentment and meaning. It is a state of mind, you can choose to
invite into your experience at any time. If you allow your happiness to depend
on factors outside of your control or things in your environment, over which
you have little or no control, any small change in your circumstances or in your
environment, will result in changes to your state over which you have no
control.
I
am sure that enjoying a delicious ice cream will make you happy. The challenge though,
is when you allow that ice cream to be the catalyst for your happiness. What
happens if someone, accidently knocks the ice cream out of your hand? Do you
immediately change your state, from happy to angry? If you are outward looking
for your happiness, it will be fleeting and temporary. The art of enjoying
positive feelings or sustainable happiness, which is not dependant on any extraneous
factors, is to find meaning and ways of inviting fulfilment into your
experience.
When
you invite meaning and fulfilment into your life, you will have discovered a
way of feeling happy and content, despite any changes in your circumstances or
any small mishaps, which may occur. A life of meaning, where you have a deep
sense of purpose and value, will most certainly never change, because someone
knocks an ice cream out of your hand. When you have meaning and you have
invited fulfilment into your life, you are living in a state of joy and
happiness, which is not dependant on purely fleeting emotions.
Action Idea:
Start to explore your environment and try discovering areas where you can find
meaning and fulfilment.
- Try to discover ways of developing deep meaningful connected relationships with people around you
- Look for a cause larger than you, which you can support.
- Make a contribution to others, with no expectation of receiving anything in return.
- Look for and discover all the wonders, which are in your life right now and feel real gratitude for them.
- Commit to a life of on-going learning and growth, as you grow and become more, you will invite far more meaning and fulfilment into your experience.
Try
to bring one or all of these factors into your experience, you will be amazed
at how they will contribute to your feeling of contentment and bring meaning into
your experience. The most wonderful side effect of working to bring any of these
concepts, I have described above, into your experience, is that as wonderful as
it is to cross the finish line in each case. The journey, which you must travel
to invite this level of meaning and fulfilment into your experience is almost
magical.
One
of the easiest ways to immediately change your state and to begin your journey
towards meaning and fulfilment is to explore your life and find all the wonders
in your life, for which you are grateful. When you take the focus off you and
place it on all the positive things you have in your life to be grateful for,
you immediately feel more positive an upbeat. Gratitude helps you to wash away
all the fear and anxiety. You cannot feel gratitude and fear and anxiety at the
same time.
So
whenever you are looking for ways to invite happiness into your life, simply
change your focus off everything, which may be wrong and instead think about
all the wonderful things you have to be grateful for in your life. Another way
to invite happiness into your experience is to do something special for someone
else. Any selfless act will bring buckets of happiness, contentment and
fulfilment into your life. Why not give it a whirl, living a life of meaning
and fulfilment, is such a satisfying place to live.
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