Happiness. A natural goal for everyone, and at the same time the most difficult goal to reach. Furthermore, everyone’s goal is, more or less, simply to reach it. How differs from each individual. For example, some need a constant vacation to be happy, some want a lot of money, some need just a partner, and again some just need to be healthy to be happy. I read a book and finally find an answer to what is happiness.
Why do we need pain
First, to understand what is happiness, we need to understand its counterpart, pain. Let me imagine you are at home, watching TV and having a cozy evening. You crave some snacks and you head to the fridge. Before you can reach it, an immense pain struck you through your nerve system. You hit your little toe at the table. You scream and curse. This happened to everyone and this felt brutal. So, when I tell you this pain makes your life better, you must think I am stupid. Why the hell does hitting my toe against the table improve my life? I am glad you ask.
Pain, in all of its forms, is our body’s most effective means of spurring action.
– Mark Manson
Pain is a warning signal, nothing else. It is a feedback mechanism to give us a sense of our own physical proportions – where we can and cannot move, and what we can and cannot touch. Furthermore, when we try to exceed our limitations our nervous system reminds us. Pain sucks, but it is useful. In addition, it tells you what is good and what is bad for us.
Likewise physical pain, our emotional pain has the same task as our physical pain. When you felt your first emotional pain of rejection or failure, it teaches you not to do the same mistakes again. “Pain is the best teacher.” That makes sense, right?
What makes you happy?
So, what makes you happy?? Happiness is NOT a life without problems. Rather, happiness comes from solving them. Problems are a constant in our life, they will never go, they just improved or exchange. For example, Bill Gates has surely money problems and so the drunk dude around the corner at your local market has them. Bill Gates just got better problems or first-world problems. For example, when you want to increase your health by registering at the gym, you will create another one. Can I motivate myself to go? What is the perfect plan for me? How should I create my diet plan?
The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one.
-Mark Manson
Example: Small Gaming Reference
This folk is a level 1 Boar from my favorite game, World of Warcraft. When you start with your character, you will face those boars. As a level 1 adventure yourself, killing those boars will gain you a decent amount of experience to raise to level 2. At some point at level 5/6, you will gain no more experience from those boars anymore. Why? Because you are stronger and more experienced than before. Let’s project this into the daily life of ours. In our life, we face challenges daily. When we master those challenges we gain precious experience from them. We develop with every conquered challenge. But, at one point you will gain no experience anymore. Your huge challenges turn into daily tasks and this is good. Like this one.
Leveling up makes us happy
At some point, you have to deal with this level 58 boar aka your problems become bigger. This challenge/boar is much tougher to master. But in exchange gives you more experience. To summarize, when you want to be happy at all times, you will and have to confront problems and challenges daily. While you master the small tasks and problems, your problems evolve. And you have to deal with them, too. The side effect here as you can see, while you reach happiness you will also develop yourself as an individual. Mastering great challenges rewards you with great happiness. This is one reason why people are jealous of you. When you ask yourself either to choose between a 1-month vacation in Japan or the United State, people ask if they can even afford a vacation. They even questioned if your problem is even a problem. Your problem is by definition a problem. But, you just have better problems. And until then, you will be happy to have these kinds of problems.
Problems never disappear they just got exchanged or improved. Remember that.
Happiness comes from solving them, not a status.
Especially movies are deluding us on what happiness is. You always see the happiness when the protagonist reaches his goal. What they do not show you is the life after it. What happens after defeating this villain? How does the love life go on after the post-movie credits? Are they still happy? Probably not.
Besides, wanting more which will make you happy is considered greedy and bitchy. Most people who confront you with: “Why are you not happy with this/him/her now? You are way too greedy!”, are people who will never develop themself. Do not listen to them. There is no shame to solve problems, getting better things, or being happier at all. When your value, in what makes you happy increases, your demands for it increase as well. Like, the boar example, true happiness is received by defeating stronger challenges.
Why some people will never be happy
The concept is simple, realize there is a problem; solve them; be happy. Unfortunately, there are two kinds of people who will never be truly happy. The ones who deny the problems and the ones who blame others for their problems.
Denial:
Some people pretend there are no problems in their life. And because they deny reality they constantly need to distract and delude themselves from reality. Of course, it makes you feel good for a short period of time but their lives will contain insecurity, emotional instability, shyness, and emotional repression. One day, these people will start to break down because of the unsolved problems of the past.
Victim Mentality:
I hate them the most. People who believe that they cannot solve their problems, but in fact, they can. When you feel fat, work out. When you have an underpaid job, get some education. If you are unhappy with your partner, work on it, or leave them and get another one. And people who are depressed because of it, mostly have the victim mentality. There is no problem in the world we cannot solve. Yes, there is no problem you cannot solve. Do you know why? Because solving problems starts within you. Instead of accepting your “fate”, fucking stand up and do something about it.
That is why people who are looking for understanding why their life sucks are pitful. People who are not living in a good political system are excluded from this. They are fucked up. However, even they try to escape and make a better life. Back to the topic, the victim mentality is mostly present in my second favorite game, League of Legends. And as you can see, I make many references to life from games because it describes the mindset so precisely.
For example, in this game, it is crucial to have a strong mindset to become better. You play, you review, and learn from your mistake. And slowly you become better. Some of my friends have this victim mentality. Instead of focusing on themself, they focus on other’s people’s mistakes. Blaming them and asking God why they have to be in the same team as them. Guess what, they are low in terms of Skill.
Summary – What makes you happy
Happiness is reached by solving problems. Any kind of problem. And these problems are based on a variety of aspects of your life. Finance, Career, Love, Friends, Family, and Self-Development. That is why people are happy with little things. For example, I am happy when I change my sponge. When I wash the dishes properly that makes me happy. A clean apartment is a clean soul.
So summarized, when you look closely at what makes you happy, you will realize that solving problems makes you happier. And I demand you guys cling to it. While you trying constantly to be happy automatically you will improve yourself.
I hope you enjoyed my post.