The Pursuit of Happiness

“True happiness is the absence of the pursuit of happiness” 

Peter Crone

How much of our time do we spend trying to secure certain outcomes or results? Maybe it’s the home of our dreams, the turnover target, the coveted award, the children’s grades or the ideal weight. I’m sure we can all think of our own examples. 

And why do we do it? If we ask ourselves the question enough times, we often see a theme emerging; we think they will make us happy. 

As a species we’re gifted with an ability for imagining how things could be in the future, so we take action towards bringing our vision to life and the journey can be incredibly rewarding and transformative. And for the most part we operate as if, once we have achieved these outcomes, we can place them in a locked room and live off the happiness forever.  

But the nature of life is change.

The obvious examples of life’s transitory nature are those we see in the environment like the seasons, the trees and the tides. Although their patterns are relatively predictable, if we wanted to keep summer in place – I know, crazy right? -  we might busy ourselves in our attempt to stop autumns arrival. This would be one fruitless fight with life always the victor. 

But it’s not just nature.  

As soon as the house is beautifully renovated, it starts changing. Maybe it’s the muddy handprint on the wall or the smell of last night’s cooking. If we want to keep it as is, we’re onto a losing battle. 

As soon as the turnover is achieved for the year, we’re back to zero for the year ahead with a journey to be travelled looming in front of us. 

As soon as the children have nailed their Maths grades for the year, there’s the English and Science to focus on and next year’s grades to be maintained.   

It can feel like we’re a ‘whack a mole’ machine fruitlessly attempting to lock in place an end point and when it feels as if it’s within our reach, the next mole pops up taking the happiness out of our path. 

So close, and yet so far.

We can’t pause life and we wouldn’t want to, despite how much we think we would. So why do we try? Why do we put so much emphasis on securing things in place rather than embracing the evolving nature? 

We live with a misunderstanding thinking that happiness comes from what we achieve or secure in our outer world. It looks convincing, and the marketers do a great job at making us believe it, but it’s not true. 

Happiness is available to us no matter what happens in our outer world. When you ask people about their most meaningful moments in life it is more often than not the ones that we might define as hard. 

Yet that doesn’t stop us from working towards outer goals or being transformed by the journey, but we can now see that it is actually the journey itself that transforms us not the result. When we realise this, we can loosen our grip on the goals just a little and feel freer to take action without the pressure of thinking it will make us feel a particular way.   

So what are you currently working towards and what do you think it will gift you? Take a moment to consider that rather than thinking happiness, or any other feeling for that matter, will come wrapped in a bow with the outcome you’re working towards, how about decoupling these two things? 

What if happiness was available right now, regardless of the outer results?