Searching For Happiness in All The Wrong Places
By Sharon L. Demarte, M.A.
Recently I realized I am happy! I have found happiness!
Oh, I have a couple of challenging life situations going
on at the moment, but my overall state is that of happiness.
I write this in a state of awe that I have actually gotten
to this place and excitement to share with you what I have
learned. All of my life I've struggled and strived to find that
elusive quality called happiness, only to have it continually
evade my grasp. What is so amazing to me is that I didn't
find it in any of the ways the world prescribes.
Basically the world encourages us to buy more stuff, go
faster, and do more, with the promise that we will become
happy. Fancy cars, big houses, luxurious vacations, a beautiful
wardrobe; all of these and more are supposed to make us happy.
Many of us believe these messages and we spend our precious
lives striving and struggling after these things only to
become disillusioned, disappointed and burned out.
Does buying more make us happy? It may give us short-term
pleasure, but not lasting happiness. If anything, buying
more makes us less happy. We have spent our money, which
cost us valuable life energy to earn, on an item that we
now have to spend even more life energy to take care of.
On top of that, buying can become addictive. Just like any
addiction, we just keep wanting more. Look at what happens
when you buy one new thing for your house? It makes everything
else look dingy, so you want to buy more new things.
Does going faster make us happy? Our culture puts a high
value on multitasking. Look at job ads. We are seen as more
valuable if we are fast and can do a lot of things at once.
We may get an adrenaline rush out of going faster, but there's
a high price to be paid if we make this a way of life. We
live with high levels of stress and we are missing out on
being fully present to our precious gift of life.
Does doing more things make us happy? Have you ever heard
of "doing happy"? No, because we are human beings
not human doings. The more "doing" things we pack
into our lives, the less we enjoy each thing we do. When
we have too much to do, we become overwhelmed. We rush from
one thing to the next striving to accomplish it all. When
we do too many things for too long, we need a vacation --
to escape our too busy lives.
None of those things made me happy, so I quit doing all
of them. I set out to downsize my life -- to clear all of
the clutter out of it. Instead of adding things to my life,
I started subtracting things. Instead of rushing, I slowed
way down. Instead of doing more things, I started doing fewer
things more thoroughly. I started setting my intention to
love and enjoy every moment of life. I started attending
to simplifying, ordering, conserving, counting my blessings,
blessing others, creating beauty, living in the present and
most important of all, listening to and following my inner
guidance, which for me is God. I let go of all goals except
one, that of inner peace. I let go of "to do" lists.
I will occasionally write myself a reminder note to do something,
but I no longer have to do lists.
I set higher standards and stronger boundaries for my life.
Boundaries are the limits we set on other's behavior when
they're around us. Standards are the limits we put on our
own behavior.
I made the following commitments to myself:
- I don't do stress anymore.
- I never rush at anything.
- I don't bring anything into my life that I don't absolutely
love.
- I don't create any more pain in my life.
- I spend my time with people who enhance rather than
drain my energy.
- I take the time I need to make wise choices.
- I never work harder than those I'm trying to help.
- I say "no" a lot more often than I say "yes".
- To be happy rather than right.
- To tell the truth to myself and others.
- I do only those things that make me feel good about
myself.
Most of the ways I live my life now are opposite to the
way I used to live. As I have simplified, downsized,
and ordered
my life, I have connected with
happiness. It's been there all the time; I just didn't know it. It was covered
over with all the clutter (busyness, stress, past issues, future worries,
too much stuff, etc.)
What is happiness anyway? What I have discovered is that
happiness = love, joy and peace. These three things lie beneath
every one of our goals. Love, joy and peace are what we're
all searching for, even if we don't realize it. And the amazing
thing is that we already have them. Love, joy and peace are
out natural state. We can access them by eliminating everything
that covers them up. Love, joy and peace are found in an
uncluttered life. Clutter is anything and everything that
takes you out of your natural state of happiness, anything
and everything that robs you of love, joy and peace.
Try an experiment. Take one of your goals, any goal. Maybe
it's a better job, a bigger house, a new car or financial
independence. It doesn't matter which goal you pick; just
pick one. Now sit down with pen and pencil and ask yourself, "If
I had that (your goal), what would I have?" Write down
what comes up for you. Don't stop there; ask the same question
of the answer you received. Like peeling an onion, keep asking
the question until you get to the core. You will know you
are at the core when no more answers come. You will have
discovered what's really important to you. What is it? Will
the goal you started with bring you what's really important
to you? If not, what will?
If you are looking outside yourself for happiness, you
won't find it. It's inside you just waiting to be uncovered.
If it's too frightening to uncover it all at once, try removing
just a few items at a time and take a peek. You could start
by just eliminating a few tolerations (things you are putting
up with). If you would like a sample of 500 tolerations,
write to me and I'll send it to you.
Like most everything in life, eliminating clutter (remember
that's anything and everything that robs you of your natural
state of love, peace and joy) is a process. It takes time
and work and it's worth it! You will not have to wait until
it's complete to reap the rewards. You will start feeling
the difference very quickly. Once you start feeling the rewards,
you will be motivated to continue the process. With each
step along the way, you will notice your life feeling lighter,
freer and happier. If you choose to take on this process,
a tool that I find priceless is the Clean Sweep Program from
Coach University. Please see the Resources section for more
information on this wonderful program and how you can get
it.
I wish you Love, Joy and Peace!
Copyright © 2000, 2001,2002 all rights reserved.
U.S. Library of Congress ISSN: 1536-5891
Permission is granted to reproduce, copy or distribute One of a Kind News so
long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author
is attached. The author of this newsletter is: Sharon L. Demarte, M.A. sharon@sharondemarte.com
Visit the Author's Web Site: One of a Kind Coaching http://www.sharondemarte.com |
