The quest for happiness and joy is as old as humanity itself, or possibly far, far older, depending on how much self-awareness you believe is needed to appreciate these things. Either way, it’s been kind of a long time. Which makes you wonder why we don’t already have a huge world surplus of both of them. We made it to the Moon; how difficult can happiness and joy be? Surely there is a formula?
You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I have given the matter considerable thought over the years. I can still remember being a university student and thinking “is this all life is?” I was doing all the mildly to wildly indulgent stuff students were supposed to do but somehow I still couldn’t seem to get happy. There were bursts, of course, but then I’d sober up and that gnawing feeling of there being something missing would come back.
At the time, I was pretty confident I would soon work it all out though, and then I’d be as happy as a TV sitcom. So, I went seeking happiness and happily did find deep pockets of it here and there. But somehow I still had that feeling of lack. I couldn’t really figure out where I needed to be, what I needed to do, what I needed to achieve… The whole thing was pretty darn tiring actually.
A little more clarity
Since then, I’ve come to realize we all worry about our place and purpose in the world to a greater or lesser degree and my personal brand of angst probably wasn’t so unusual. I’ve even managed to work out something like my own answers to questions such as those above. I plan to look at those answers in depth in future posts but what I can say here with reasonable certainty is that you don’t need to go looking for them, as I did for so long.
I’m sure it’s something you’ve heard before, and has become kind of a cliche, but you will find all the answers, and happiness and joy, you need inside yourself. Well, that has been my experience, to the small degree I have been able to embrace the idea. It may all be inside you but it still takes a lot of practice to see the truth in this, especially as we are so used to looking outside.
That may not be so clear but please, if you would, cast your eye over the graphic at the top of the page. This is my rough attempt to summarize in visual form what I have learned about happiness and joy so far. It is basically intended to provide an overview and framework for future navigation. For example, our idea of looking inside is represented by the shift from external to internal focus across the bottom axis.
I will admit it may seem a little confusing on first viewing. But I plan to use the rest of this post to introduce the key points and then create a second more detailed post to help you make sense of it. I’m already finding it really useful as I try to fit the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of happiness and joy together. Hopefully you will find it illuminating.
The happiness/joy continuum
Probably the first point to make is I don’t think we can talk about happiness without joy. You may prefer other words but we need to establish two ends of a fairly broad continuum if we are to capture the full range of emotion and activity. I believe we can achieve happiness (yellow in the graphic) relatively easily from external sources but it tends to be transitory. Joy is harder to find and we need to focus internally but it can be more sustained.
Having said that, happiness and joy also obviously overlap, although in a non-linear way. I’ve tried to represent this by using irregular shapes in the visual. It matters because while we can attain happiness fairly instantly through gratifying activities such as hogging out on our favorite comfort foods, there is limited potential for sustained awesomeness (Slow dude psychology term). This is indicated by the white area on the upper left, also known as “that feeling of lack.”
To maximize awesomeness (top right), we need to consciously choose the other activities listed across the bottom. Naturally, the levels will be different for everybody though, as I’ve tried to show using the two orange lines across the blocks. The framework also assumes your basic human needs are being met. Awesomeness is theoretically possible in any situation but, for most of us, it is much easier when we are eating regularly and living inside.
Those are the main concepts, I believe. In the next post, I’ll go into more detail about the items and also give some examples of how I’m trying to put it all into practice. I’m still finding my way with this but the framework has definitely given me a greater sense of direction. I invite you to read The Search for Happiness and Joy 2 (coming soon).
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