The Paradox of Happiness
Do you think chasing or craving happiness will make us happy? We believe that achieving and owning things will make us happy, but happiness definition changes from time to time. The following article discusses the paradox of happiness.
1. The more we wish to be happy, the less likely we succeed. But if we stop desiring happiness and stop pursuing it directly, we’re more likely to experience it.
2. Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
3. Whatever we pursue, there’s no guarantee that happiness will result from it. We may have expectations of happiness being a consequence of specific actions. But in many cases, these expectations do not align with reality.
4. Suffering sometimes ceases to be suffering when meaning is found.
5. Happiness cannot be achieved directly; therefore, it should not be the focus of our actions.
6. Most people aim to feel happy; typically, the more someone strives for a goal, the more likely they will reach it. However, this logic does not always apply to striving for happiness.
7. High expectations for the intensity of one’s happiness can be detrimental by rendering the goal largely unreachable.
8. Don’t Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.
– Eckhart Tolle
9. The lower our expectations are, the less there is to disappoint.
10. If our actions don’t generate happiness, that’s okay, as it’s not the goal anyway, But if they do, that’s even better. Our efforts have yielded a welcome byproduct.
The Paradox of Happiness
11. Happiness is the byproduct of the action we do, we buy or love material things thinking they will give us happiness, but actually, the pursuit of pleasure interferes with the experience of it.
