Why is Happiness Important?
Why is Happiness Important? By Brent Phillips Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved In our modern world, there are so many demands up on our limited resources – time, energy, etc. - that we rarely have time to reflect on such seemingly tangential aspects of life such as how happy we are.
After all, if you have bills to pay, a job (or two!) to do, children to take care of, and/or a million other things to do, can you reall afford to spend a lot of time on something as impractical as increasing your happiness?
Like most self-improvement and spiritual pursuits, the truth is that you can’t afford not to. Indeed, the quest for happiness is so fundamental to the human condition that it is named as one of the three inalienable rights of man by the writers of the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! It’s pretty amazing that happiness is a cornerstone for modern democracy, eh?
The sad truth is that the busyness of modern life leads us to lose sight of the forest for the trees. In other words, we lose sight of the reason why do all the things we do. When was the last time you paused to think about why you have a job, work hard, stay in shape, eat well, date and develop relationships, pursue hobbies, and enjoy entertainment? I encourage you to take a moment to stop and dissect your motivations, and I think you’ll find that the core, underlying motivation for everything you do is rather simple: you want to be happy!
As an example, let's take a look at the modern obsession with money. In our current society,
money is truly our god, and we worship at the altar of commerce. No matter how much or how little we have, we all want (and think we need!) more money. This is taken as an axiom of modern life: money is good and more money is better.
As a result, it is readily accepted - without any explanation required – that it is OK – even admirable - to do something you dislike, or even hate, to get money. How often have you or your friends missed out on a party or barbeque or concert or other social event because you had to work? I'm not saying this is bad or wrong - most of us are not insane and there are valid, important reasons for why what we do - but all too often we sacrifice what is truly important in our lives because "we need the money".
But why do we really need the money? The most typical answers involve the so-called necessities of life, including to pay the rent, or to buy food, or put gas in the car, or to buy clothes, or to pay for medical care. Other answers stray closer to leisure and involve hobbies or entertainment. But none of these things is an end in itself. After all, why do you think you need to pay the rent? Or buy clothes? Or pay the electric bill? Or repair your car? The answer is always the same: because if you don't, you think it will make you feel bad - it will make you unhappy.
If you are really honest with yourself, the reason you want all the things you want is simple: you want to be happy! Again, I don't intend to sound judgmental - there's nothing inherently wrong or bad with wanting money, or food, or clothes, or a big house, or a fancy care, or medical care, or entertainment. But really, the underlying reason for wanting all these things is usually the same: you want to feel good and you want to be happy!
Your life will function better if you can tell yourself the truth and recognize that more than anything, you want to be happy. And instead of taking the circuitous, indirect route to happiness programmed into by society - grow up, get an education, get a job, buy tons of stuff, get married, etc. - why not cut to the chase and see what you can do to be happy right here, right now?
And if you think that the quest for happiness is a distraction, or superfluous, or flighty and whimsical, let me put your mind at ease by emphasizing a critically important point:
The fastest way to get anything you want in life is to be happier, right here and right now!
This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but upon further inspection you will find a powerful truth.
Let's take a moment and look at what I call the "big three": health, wealth, and love. I call them the “big three” because they are the three things that most of us think we need to have before we can be happy. Below, we’ll examine each of the “big three” in turn.
Let’s start with health. It is said that if you don't have your health, you don't have anything - and as someone who has spent many years living in chronic pain, I can vouch that this is correct. But when we think about what it takes to get healthy, most of us think get it backwards: we think that we need to be healthy before we can be happy. This is not true!
In fact, study after study has proven just the opposite: instead, the fact is that the happier you are, the healthier you will be.
It is now widely accepted in the medical community that if you are generally happy and able to laugh a lot, you will be healthier. In particular, your immune system will be stronger, you will be less likely to get sick or suffer from chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and you will heal more quickly from injuries.
In fact, the dangerous diseases that ruin many lives are caused by an underlying
unhappiness that typically persists for decades before it manifests as physical illness.
So if you really want to be healthy, get happy - it works!
Next we'll look at money. If you are new to New Age thinking and the Law of Attraction, you may not immediately see the connection between happiness and wealth. However, those of you who have studied this material know that all the wealth building gurus - everyone from Napoleon Hill to T Harv Eker to Chris Howard - teach that in order to generate serious wealth, you need to follow your bliss.
While you may be able to make a living doing something you hate, know that it is unlikely that you will strike it rich!
To put it another way, your income is directly proportionate to how happy you are to be doing the work you are doing. If you love what you do, and if you can bring passion and focus to your day-to-day duties and responsibilities, you are well prepared to make tons of money. As with health, it's really that simple: the happier you are, the more money you will make!
Isn't it ironic, then, that most of us cite lack of money as the main reason we aren't happy? Hopefully now you can see more clearly how our society has programmed you with a paradigm that is ass-backwards and directly opposed to the truth of how the Universe really works!
Lastly, we'll consider the subject of love. For many of us, an intimate romantic relationship is considered a requirement to be happy. In fact, our language reflects this attitude, because we often talk about a significant other as someone who "makes us happy." But as with money and health, conventional thinking is backwards, because love, romance, and sex do not create happiness...instead, the opposite is true: happiness attracts love, romance, and sex!
If you doubt this, think for a moment about what makes you attracted to other people, or even what makes you like them. It's pretty simple: if you are around someone that makes you feel good, you will like them - and if you are around someone that makes you feel bad, you won’t like them. And unless you are seriously depressed, you'll feel better around happy people. So, as with health and wealth, if you desire more friends, more romance, and more people to like you in general, the solution is simple: you need to get happier!
In summary, it's important to recognize the real reason why you want the things you want in life – and it's nearly always to be happy.
Even things you do for other people have an underlying selfish motive. Namely, when you do nice things for other people, it makes you feel good - it makes you happy! (There’s a reason why every spiritual tradition emphasizes the importance of service: serving others is the fast track to happiness.)
And if you can be happy right here, right now, not only will you not need the other things to make you happy, but being happy will empower you and allow you to manifest health, wealth, love, and everything else you desire, quickly and easily.
After all, if you have bills to pay, a job (or two!) to do, children to take care of, and/or a million other things to do, can you reall afford to spend a lot of time on something as impractical as increasing your happiness?
Like most self-improvement and spiritual pursuits, the truth is that you can’t afford not to. Indeed, the quest for happiness is so fundamental to the human condition that it is named as one of the three inalienable rights of man by the writers of the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! It’s pretty amazing that happiness is a cornerstone for modern democracy, eh?
The sad truth is that the busyness of modern life leads us to lose sight of the forest for the trees. In other words, we lose sight of the reason why do all the things we do. When was the last time you paused to think about why you have a job, work hard, stay in shape, eat well, date and develop relationships, pursue hobbies, and enjoy entertainment? I encourage you to take a moment to stop and dissect your motivations, and I think you’ll find that the core, underlying motivation for everything you do is rather simple: you want to be happy!
As an example, let's take a look at the modern obsession with money. In our current society,
money is truly our god, and we worship at the altar of commerce. No matter how much or how little we have, we all want (and think we need!) more money. This is taken as an axiom of modern life: money is good and more money is better.
As a result, it is readily accepted - without any explanation required – that it is OK – even admirable - to do something you dislike, or even hate, to get money. How often have you or your friends missed out on a party or barbeque or concert or other social event because you had to work? I'm not saying this is bad or wrong - most of us are not insane and there are valid, important reasons for why what we do - but all too often we sacrifice what is truly important in our lives because "we need the money".
But why do we really need the money? The most typical answers involve the so-called necessities of life, including to pay the rent, or to buy food, or put gas in the car, or to buy clothes, or to pay for medical care. Other answers stray closer to leisure and involve hobbies or entertainment. But none of these things is an end in itself. After all, why do you think you need to pay the rent? Or buy clothes? Or pay the electric bill? Or repair your car? The answer is always the same: because if you don't, you think it will make you feel bad - it will make you unhappy.
If you are really honest with yourself, the reason you want all the things you want is simple: you want to be happy! Again, I don't intend to sound judgmental - there's nothing inherently wrong or bad with wanting money, or food, or clothes, or a big house, or a fancy care, or medical care, or entertainment. But really, the underlying reason for wanting all these things is usually the same: you want to feel good and you want to be happy!
Your life will function better if you can tell yourself the truth and recognize that more than anything, you want to be happy. And instead of taking the circuitous, indirect route to happiness programmed into by society - grow up, get an education, get a job, buy tons of stuff, get married, etc. - why not cut to the chase and see what you can do to be happy right here, right now?
And if you think that the quest for happiness is a distraction, or superfluous, or flighty and whimsical, let me put your mind at ease by emphasizing a critically important point:
The fastest way to get anything you want in life is to be happier, right here and right now!
This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but upon further inspection you will find a powerful truth.
Let's take a moment and look at what I call the "big three": health, wealth, and love. I call them the “big three” because they are the three things that most of us think we need to have before we can be happy. Below, we’ll examine each of the “big three” in turn.
Let’s start with health. It is said that if you don't have your health, you don't have anything - and as someone who has spent many years living in chronic pain, I can vouch that this is correct. But when we think about what it takes to get healthy, most of us think get it backwards: we think that we need to be healthy before we can be happy. This is not true!
In fact, study after study has proven just the opposite: instead, the fact is that the happier you are, the healthier you will be.
It is now widely accepted in the medical community that if you are generally happy and able to laugh a lot, you will be healthier. In particular, your immune system will be stronger, you will be less likely to get sick or suffer from chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and you will heal more quickly from injuries.
In fact, the dangerous diseases that ruin many lives are caused by an underlying
unhappiness that typically persists for decades before it manifests as physical illness.
So if you really want to be healthy, get happy - it works!
Next we'll look at money. If you are new to New Age thinking and the Law of Attraction, you may not immediately see the connection between happiness and wealth. However, those of you who have studied this material know that all the wealth building gurus - everyone from Napoleon Hill to T Harv Eker to Chris Howard - teach that in order to generate serious wealth, you need to follow your bliss.
While you may be able to make a living doing something you hate, know that it is unlikely that you will strike it rich!
To put it another way, your income is directly proportionate to how happy you are to be doing the work you are doing. If you love what you do, and if you can bring passion and focus to your day-to-day duties and responsibilities, you are well prepared to make tons of money. As with health, it's really that simple: the happier you are, the more money you will make!
Isn't it ironic, then, that most of us cite lack of money as the main reason we aren't happy? Hopefully now you can see more clearly how our society has programmed you with a paradigm that is ass-backwards and directly opposed to the truth of how the Universe really works!
Lastly, we'll consider the subject of love. For many of us, an intimate romantic relationship is considered a requirement to be happy. In fact, our language reflects this attitude, because we often talk about a significant other as someone who "makes us happy." But as with money and health, conventional thinking is backwards, because love, romance, and sex do not create happiness...instead, the opposite is true: happiness attracts love, romance, and sex!
If you doubt this, think for a moment about what makes you attracted to other people, or even what makes you like them. It's pretty simple: if you are around someone that makes you feel good, you will like them - and if you are around someone that makes you feel bad, you won’t like them. And unless you are seriously depressed, you'll feel better around happy people. So, as with health and wealth, if you desire more friends, more romance, and more people to like you in general, the solution is simple: you need to get happier!
In summary, it's important to recognize the real reason why you want the things you want in life – and it's nearly always to be happy.
Even things you do for other people have an underlying selfish motive. Namely, when you do nice things for other people, it makes you feel good - it makes you happy! (There’s a reason why every spiritual tradition emphasizes the importance of service: serving others is the fast track to happiness.)
And if you can be happy right here, right now, not only will you not need the other things to make you happy, but being happy will empower you and allow you to manifest health, wealth, love, and everything else you desire, quickly and easily.
