Stop Pursuing Happiness: 5 Ways to Find It Anyway
It was a warm May evening in Rome.
The breeze was blowing my hair back. I was laughing.
Only a couple of days earlier, I'd met the man whom I now held onto.
He'd paid for my pizza, gotten my number and left me to myself.
It was the beginning of my Italian adventure.
Now I was on the back of his motorcycle, caution to the wind.
Back in the States, I would never have accepted a ride from a man I didn't know well.
But I felt no fear.
As we idled at a stoplight, I noticed a crumbling wall just a few feet to my right.
"Is that the Colosseum?!" I asked, awestruck.
"Yes!" he said.
The closeness of something so ancient made me laugh now.
I’d been a stay-at-home mom, living for my children and the impossible struggle to keep a perfect home.
Now I was in another world.
Though I was 45 years old, had two teenage children at home and was newly divorced, I felt as innocent as a newborn baby.
I had to bookmark this feeling.
"This is happiness," I said to myself. "I am happy. Remember this."
Happiness is a messy word like Love.
And yet, we're told to pursue is with all our might -- especially in the U.S.
"Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life," wrote Aristotle, "the whole aim of human existence."
Indeed, the Declaration of Independence calls the pursuit of it an “inalienable right”.
When we do experience the feeling we call happiness, holding onto to it is like trying hold sunshine in your hands.
Pursuing it is akin to staring directly at the sun in hopes of getting more of the good feeling of basking in the sunshine.
Happiness is perhaps best discovered and experienced while doing other things.
Studies back this up, finding that the more we value happiness, the less likely we are to enjoy our happiness when we're in the midst of it.
So how can you find happiness without looking for it?
Trust your gut. Rules keep you safe to a point. But they can become your prison, too. Dare to trust yourself to find adventure.
Take risks (see #2). If you trust your gut, you can break your own rules of "never" and "always" to discover joys you never knew.
Practice gratitude. Every day. Make a list. When gratitude is habit, we experience happiness.
Celebrate each day. We get 4,000 weeks to be on the planet, as Oliver Burkeman writes in best selling book. Each day is a gift.
Be present. When we're berating ourselves for perceived imperfections, consumed by FOMO, lost in our phones, ruminating on the past, anticipating the future -- we miss the the sunshine of happiness that is right here, right now.
Next time you feel the warmth of happiness, don't try to hold onto it. Bask in it’s warmth.