Imagine after years of striving you finally move into your dream home. How amazing would you feel?
What about if you made a ton of money all in one go, like winning the lottery. How happy would you be?
If you’re like my cousin’s friend, you’ll be just as miserable as you were before.
Why? It’s obvious, right?
We all know that money and stuff doesn’t make you happy, but why?
The technical answer is—this is known as a sequential incongruity.
The logical left hemisphere of your brain believes that if X happens then you will feel good, but unfortunately the rest of your brain doesn’t think this way.
It’s more like—you dream to get something, then you get it, then you adapt to it, and then you feel how you did before.
We have all experienced this psychological adaption, but there’s a simpler answer to my cousin’s friend’s problem.
Money and stuff don’t make you happy because nothing makes you happy.
The only thing that can make you happy is you!
And while most people will never accept this (hence their happiness is contingent on bad things not happening), students of the mind know that happiness has little to do with what you have or don’t have or what is or isn’t going on in your life.
We know that happiness is mostly a matter of choice and your skillfulness at interacting with your thoughts and feelings.
Believe me when I say that I didn’t come out of the womb with this knowledge, but for fifteen years I’ve been learning and training these skills for myself.
In fact it has taken me so much research and effort to master these ideas that I am writing a book on being happier, better, and becoming who you choose to be.
While over time I will share more ideas with you, for now I will leave you with these five questions for unlocking more happiness right now:
1. If what you are doing isn’t making you happy, what are you willing to change?
2. If you could change one way of thinking and one behavior that will most improve your happiness, what are they?
3. What has held you back from making these changes already?
4. What will get you to make these changes now?
5. How do you imagine yourself joyously happier having already made these changes?