In just the beginnings of my reading, I've come across a principle that is so simple and so profound that I know if only I could adhere to it, my whole life would be different. Paraphrasing (hopefully accurately): The key to happiness is wanting what you have and not wanting what you don't have.
It's true. A good 95% of my unhappiness in life (as opposed to my bouts of depression which are due to my defective brain) is due to my perceiving that other people have things that I don't, and wanting those things, and feeling resentful about it. You know, stuff like a partner who loves me, a healthy child, future grandbabies, the ability to have all the nice things I would like without going into crushing debt, and (especially at this time of year) a big happy family. Obviously, all those things are pretty much out of my control or downright impossible. So wanting them is just forcing myself into misery.
If I could just be joyous with the good parts of my life that exist (which I am) without craving other things that probably or definitely aren't in the cards, all my unhappiness would fall away. If I could do the Buddhist thing and just learn to be in the moment, I'd hardly be malevolent anymore. (And then what would I blog about?!??)
Really, I think they're on to something.
xoxo
5 comments:
You would blog about how non-attached you are to your new shoes ;-)
And, yes, they are onto something. But itd cause an even bigger upheaval in the economy if everyone stopped wanting the stuff that their neighbors/friends/siblings have.
And those Christmas commercials telling you to buy Hallmark/Zales/the latest cool toy/Folgers coffee for your loved ones, because if you dont you dont love them would all disappear. Hmm...that might not be a bad thing.
I was raised in an enviroment where rich people were bad, poor people were good and it was the rich peoples fault the poor couldnt get ahead. I have since learned that many who appear to be rich are not really rich (money wise) and are really not happy with their lives. They have their problems the same as you and I.
No, I do not always remember this, and fall back to old thinking sometimes. Especially at this time of year, and at times when Im scrimping and scraping to pay rent.
Enjoy the books, hopefully you wont throw it around like I did. LOL Buddhism will challenge all your old ways of thinking. It has mine. But, it was time for those old ways to be changed. ;-)
Just as an interesting aside:
Mr Indemnity was just telling me the other day about hearing this guy speak who had actually scientifically studied happiness and written a book about it. Apparently, money buys happiness *up to a point*...i.e. if you have a moderately comfortable income you are happier than some poor person who's living hand to mouth and thus worrying about money. But over a certain income level, happiness statistically decreases. And one of the correlations was that when people reach a certain income level, they tend to buy a bigger house further out in the suburbs and then have to commute--by car--longer every day. And driving in traffic makes you unhappy!
(No word on whether taking the prison bus increases or decreases happiness statistically. But, for me, there are days it makes it worth getting up in the morning!)
It's said, too, that when you stop wanting what you don't have, then sometimes you'll find something you wanted all along.
I can't quantify that totally but I like the sound of it.
One correction: it's not that those who make above a certain income have decreasing happiness, its that increasing income stops making them happier. One reaches a level of maximum income related happiness (which he said on various studies is somewhere between $40,000 and $90,000 per year) and after that making more income just barely makes you happier but it doesn't decrease, your happiness related to income just levels off.
BTW the speaker was Harvard Psychologist Dan Gilbert who's popular book Stumbling on Happiness http://bit.ly/1agZFu probably has it a lot more accurately than I related.
He did seem like a relatively happy person, but I think he was more Jewish than Buddhist.
Oops! Sorry I misquoted!
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