Finding happiness within is a vital key to finding happiness. I know what you’re thinking… semantics right? Well let’s take a look at the definition of within:
1. In or into the inner part; inside.
2. Inside the mind, heart, or soul; inwardly.
Let’s look precisely at 2. Inside the mind, heart, or soul; inwardly.
Many of use can get the concept of happiness inside our mind, but we fall short in regards to the heart and soul aspects. I’ve always liked the saying, “the farthest distance is the 12 inches between our head and heart.”
It seems no matter how much we think about happiness and what it takes to achieve, it remains short lived or temporary at most. We think we know, or have an idea of what happiness is, so we set out the move toward that idea.
Yet we find once we put the idea into action, the happiness is most often as fleeting as the thought itself.
Long-lasting happiness is achieved by tapping into the desires and needs of the heart and soul. Finding these desires starts with knowing who we truly are in our soul, not just who we think we our in our mind.
Thinking About Happiness
As a young man, I thought I wanted to be a zookeeper. I thought I knew how to find happiness. Growing up on farm and having a love for animals, zoo keeping seemed to be something that would make me happy forever. Shortly after I entered college, I thought of a way to get into zoo keeping as a career. Through persistence, I eventually landed a part-time job at a local zoo.
I started working nights picking up trash and working in the commissary preparing meals for all the animals. I had my foot in the door. Within a few years I had quit school and working full-time as a primate keeper. I had made it and it seemed I was destined for life-long happiness.
A few years went by and I suddenly realized I wasn’t happy anymore. I thought I had found happiness, but in my heart I knew there must be more.
Thinking happiness is an intellectual action, to get happiness in our heart and soul, we must have more than an idea and our intellect.
From my own experience, the more I intellectualize something, the less I rely on intuition and the language of the heart. Since we’re seeking to find happiness, we must know this to be true in some aspect.
Even though we relentlessly try to think our way into happiness, there’s something deep inside each one of us that knows there is more to it. Take the simple yet powerful statement, “you can’t buy happiness.”
Deep inside you (especially if you’ve found your way to JaredAkers.com) know that happiness can’t be purchased, chased, captured, or won. So if we know happiness cannot be bought, why do we keep trying?
Because the alternative is hard!
Getting Happiness From Within our Heart Instead of Our Mind
Thinking about happiness—and even putting that thought into action—is easy, that’s why we try it for so long. Not until we finally figure out its not working do we seek something else.
Many times that means looking within ourselves, which many of us don’t want to do. If you’re anything like I was, I was afraid of what I might find. But if we seek, we shall find. Even if we don’t like what we find, at least we know what we’re dealing with, and THEN we can change it.
Finding happiness from within begins with knowing where we’re at. We must know where we are to successfully build a path to where we want to get. Starting that journey begins with a realistic view of ourselves.
We must break ourselves down to our truest self and discover what our ideal self looks like. We now know where we are, and what our ideal self looks like; so we begin building towards that ideal self.
The closer we get, the happier we feel inside. Our heart becomes full of gratitude and self-love as our soul is renewed with our sense of self.
Finding our ideal self often takes help from an outside party such as counselor, therapist, spiritual advisor, or someone trained in a similar field or has been through the process. At least it did for me.
Our view of the world is often skewed through our personal and emotional lens. Evidence is the lack of happiness we have had in our lives for so long no matter how hard we tried to find it.
To find happiness within, start with discovering what your true hearts desires are; what inner happiness looks like for yourself.
This journey often begins when we stop trying to wrestle happiness out of life and learning to have a healthy, loving relationship with ourselves. Treating ourselves well begins with self-acceptance; which becomes easier once we start living a life inline with the truest ideals we have for ourselves.
Happiness within is the by-product of right living; and only our heart and soul can tell us when we’re living right. Start listening to it!
If all this sounds confusing or you have no where to start, I suggest my book, Happiness for the Practical Mind: 7 Steps to Discovering and Loving Your Authentic Self.