The Happiness Trap

I don't much worry about being happy anymore, I think it's a trap. A bill of goods, a barker's jive. Step right up and prepare to be disappointed. Because happiness, by its very nature, is conjoined with unhappiness. "I want to be happy" is all about declaring that you are not. Or at least, if not unhappy, then feeling something that is sketchy and gnawing. Wanting. Yearning. 

Nah, I try to dig for something else like contentment and deep satisfaction. These things aren't necessarily low-hanging fruit for our chattering minds. But enthusiasm and curiosity are amazing tools to use to harvest them. And here's the fun part, these types of things are as likely to find you as you them. Without sweating it. 

Our Buddhist friends point out that all striving (including for the sketchy
idea of happiness) is a dead end. So if not grinding with exertion, aiming for Mt. Happiness, what can get us through the days?

Part of the solution is to accept without judgement those things which are there for the riling. Steaming piles of you-know-what. Letting them ripple on by without your need to protest, be outraged, rage against. Then your energy is more suited to rollin' on the sweet river. Finding your own water.

Part 2: tell people you're busy and sit. Quietly review what you have to be grateful for, what went well recently, a smile that snuck up on you. A person you love and who loves you. This avoids the insatiable happiness trap.

Because a trap only ensnares when we follow the path to it. Acceptance and replacement is a different path altogether. Accept that there are things which are absolutely going to make you unhappy. Replace them with what is already right in your world. No, it's not magic, it's just a way to try.

Right answers aren't the point anymore, only wrong questions. How can I be happy? Who cares? How can I be of service is a pretty right question. There is a deep satisfaction that awaits, there for the taking. A box of contentment ribboned with joy, with your name on it. Ready to be delivered.  

It’s just not labeled happiness.