Happiness is an Inside Job

I have a friend who I love dearly, but he’s simply never satisfied. He’s coached me through financing cars, making investments, buying land, and career opportunities so you would imagine he has a great head on his shoulders and is in a great position. And he is. But for whatever reason, complaints are so much quicker to come out of his mouth than compliments.

Every morning he drags his feet down the steps of his new three-story townhouse into his garage to get into the 6 series he just traded his Maserati in for and drives a mile to the job he hates working for one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world who just so happen to pay him well over six-figures. Believe me when I say it’s not a tough life to live and from the outside looking in, it’s hard to fathom what he could possibly have to complain about. Let him tell it, he just needs a new job but I know better. He can’t find happiness because he won’t allow himself to see it.

We often tell ourselves that we’re so close to happiness and just need that one thing in order to make it official. That one thing being a high paying a job, a new car, an overseas vacation, a six-pack, true love in a significant other, only to get those things and still feel empty. We’re constantly making happiness feel like an occasion. A feeling that finally occurs when all of the stars align, things finally start going our way and we finally have everything we desire. Many of us can’t even enjoy what we do have because we’re constantly dwelling on what we don’t, when in reality we already have all the ingredients that we need to live a truly happy life.

We all have desires to live better lives, to make more money, to see more things, but I guarantee that if we can’t find the slightest bit of happiness with what we have right here, right now; we likely won’t find it anywhere. If your external circumstances completely changed, would it truly changed how you felt? If you can’t find what it takes to be happy where you are now with what you have now, the issue isn’t your circumstances – it’s likely you. You’re guiding yourself down a long road of disappointment by trying to convince yourself that you’ll be happy when you “get this” or when you “have that”. Imagine how much time you’re wasting in hopeless purgatory in the meantime. Events in your life will go as quickly as they come. Graduations, business openings, weddings, and vacations all expire – what can you do to keep your happiness sailing smoothly without needing a destination?

The world is ever-changing, no two days are the same. If your happiness is contingent upon what’s happening on your day to day journey through life you’re bound to experience a great deal of unnecessary discontent. Most people search for happiness outside of themselves which is a fundamental mistake. Happiness is right here, right now. Happiness is something you are and it stems from the way that you think.

Change your thoughts and change your life.