I’ve had many conversations about happiness over the course of 2013 and was beginning to wonder if anyone experienced true happiness or if it’s just something the feel-good gurus have convinced us to believe in. For us common folk, it’s incredibly hard not to have dramatic emotional responses to the constant ebb and flow of life; most of us get mired in our negative experiences and get beaten down over the course of our adult lives. Life can be so unkind.
But I love Deepak Chopra’s description of the two types of happiness that exist:
As many Eastern wisdom traditions teach, there are two types of happiness. The first kind of happiness comes from things turning out the way we’d like them to. This is known as happiness for a reason. We say, “I’m happy because I have a family and friends,” or “I’m happy because I got a promotion,” or “I’m happy because I’m going on vacation,” and so on. This kind of happiness is inherently fleeting because it depends on external reasons that can be taken away from us at any time. Although we tend to avoid thinking about it, we can lose our home, our job, our savings, our health, and our loved ones at any time. These are temporary, external sources of happiness that come and go like a passing breeze.
The second type of happiness, in contrast, is an internal state of consciousness that allows us to be happy for no reason at all. It is independent of the circumstances, events, people, and things in our lives. This happiness comes from the realization that our true self isn’t our body, thoughts, emotions, personality, possessions, accomplishments, relationships, or any other time-bound attribute. Our essential nature is pure, unbounded consciousness, also known as the field of all possibilities. The attributes of this field include happiness, love, timelessness, compassion, creativity, wisdom, silence, and grace.
Don’t we all completely identify with the first, most common form of happiness? We insist we’ll be happy when we start making enough money or when we trim inches off our thighs.
I go through bouts of belief when it comes to this internal state of happiness; I understand and believe in it wholeheartedly, yet sometimes I wake up and feel as though there’s no such thing. But more and more, I’m coming to realize that I can find that depth of happiness within me by standing still, being in the moment and being quiet. I suspect that it’s always there, the natural happiness we’re all born with, but we cover it with so much daily grime that it gets lost long enough for us to change its definition. That’s when we start relying on positive external experiences for our happiness.
So how about we set an intention for 2014? Instead of going out and finding happiness, let’s uncover it.
