{"id":628,"date":"2017-06-17T14:11:39","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T14:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/?p=628"},"modified":"2017-06-17T14:11:39","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T14:11:39","slug":"aware-happiness-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2017\/06\/aware-happiness-myth.html","title":{"rendered":"Are You Aware Of This Happiness Myth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s something that was invented hundreds of years ago.<\/p>\n<p>At that time, it was also being mentioned as something which was &#8220;new&#8221; despite the fact that it had been around for thousands of years previously.<\/p>\n<p>Not only that but this is also something which is still being perpetuated throughout our society today&#8230;more than ever before.<\/p>\n<p>What I&#8217;m talking about is &#8220;The pursuit of happiness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve seen this in many different ways such as:<\/p>\n<p>-Trying to have a happy marriage<\/p>\n<p>-Trying to have happy children<\/p>\n<p>-Trying to live a happy life<\/p>\n<p>And there&#8217;s even trying to have happiness in the workplace.<\/p>\n<p>The list goes on and on. And along with that is the idea of pursuing happiness.<\/p>\n<p>Notice one key word that I mentioned&#8230;&#8221;trying.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There is something very interesting and overlooked just about every time when you&#8217;re &#8220;trying&#8221; to pursue happiness in whatever area it is for you.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s one of the biggest myths there is when it comes to achieving happiness in your life.<\/p>\n<p>Are you aware of what this happiness myth is?<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Trivial pursuit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The so called &#8220;pursuit of happiness&#8221; is just that. The reason it&#8217;s &#8220;so called&#8221; has everything to do with the happiness myth that most people are not aware of. Not only are people &#8220;not aware&#8221; of what this is, but when this myth is taken to extremes it has dangerous side effects.<\/p>\n<p>So what is this myth?<\/p>\n<p>The fact that your happiness is never missing to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>Since your happiness is never missing to begin with why are so many people searching for it as though it was?<\/p>\n<p>Before I get to that here&#8217;s something else that shocks most people&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Your sadness is never missing either.<\/p>\n<p>Not expecting to hear that&#8230;right? I&#8217;ll come back to this as well.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore the pursuit of happiness is something that is futile and completely unrealistic for any human being&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And the same is true about the pursuit of sadness.<\/p>\n<p>So instead of &#8220;trying&#8221; (there&#8217;s that word again) to live in pursuit of happiness&#8230;It is much wiser to live in pursuit of balance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. The not so missing ingredient<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The reason why so many people are searching for happiness as though it was missing is because of the so called idea that they&#8217;re &#8220;sad&#8221; or &#8220;depressed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In other words, those who are pursuing or searching for happiness are looking to get away from being sad while trying to live a one sided life of happiness.<\/p>\n<p>But the amazing part of this is that both are always present and at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>It only appears to be &#8220;happy&#8221; or &#8220;sad&#8221; through your conscious awareness.<\/p>\n<p>In your sub conscious awareness (and how the Universe works) happiness and sadness occur simultaneously.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an example of what I mean&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re feeling sad or depressed because someone you were in an intimate relationship with just broke up with you.<\/p>\n<p>The only way that you can be sad or depressed is if you had a fantasy and an expectation (especially an unrealistic one) that if this person didn&#8217;t break up with you, life would have been better, life would have been happier.<\/p>\n<p>Your reality has you feeling &#8220;sad&#8217; or &#8220;depressed&#8221; and thinking you&#8217;re not happy. So therefore you&#8217;ll think your happiness is missing.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not because in actuality you are both sad and happy.<\/p>\n<p>Now you may be thinking, &#8220;well how can I be happy if someone I wanted to be in a relationship with just broke up with me?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Well there may be a &#8220;hidden&#8221; or sub conscious happiness that you won&#8217;t be tied down in certain areas of your life.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll have a sense of freedom.<\/p>\n<p>It could be that you may not feel so obligated in different ways.<\/p>\n<p>You may now be happy that you&#8217;ll have more time to do other things that you weren&#8217;t able to do when you were in the relationship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;You get the idea.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line here is that your happiness is never missing, even in situations where it seems like it is.<\/p>\n<p>And that if you&#8217;re trying to get rid of sadness while thinking you&#8217;ll live a happy life, you set yourself up to live a one sided fantasy, and then when that one sided fantasy, the happiness, doesn&#8217;t appear more in your reality you&#8217;ll think it&#8217;s missing and be in a constant pursuit of happiness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. Your hidden treasures<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s now come back to what I mentioned earlier and that is the pursuit of balance. Instead of pursuing happiness it is much wiser to pursue balance. Why?<\/p>\n<p>Because it will allow you to be able to manage your emotions and as a result not be distracted.<\/p>\n<p>Why is this important?<\/p>\n<p>Because when you&#8217;re able to manage your emotions you&#8217;ll be able to tap into the inner brilliance, magnificence, and genius of who you are.<\/p>\n<p>And this will also help you live a healthier life as well.<\/p>\n<p>Also remember that nothing is missing. When you live in pursuit of balance you&#8217;ll realize that your sadness is just as much a gift as your happiness.<\/p>\n<p>In this way you won&#8217;t be searching for something that you think is missing (your happiness) and in the process trying to live a life of excess (extreme happiness), which leads to the depression that people are trying to avoid. This is the dangerous side effects I mentioned earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another fact&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You have hidden treasures within you in the form of your uniqueness that provides a tremendous amount of value to the world.<\/p>\n<p>The most powerful way for you to access that is to be in pursuit of balance and know that you&#8217;ll encounter equal amounts of happiness and sadness on your amazing journey in life.<\/p>\n<p>So many times we hear the word &#8220;secret&#8221; and it really has become cliche and overused nowadays.<\/p>\n<p>However if there is such a thing as a &#8220;true secret&#8221; it is the pursuit of balance while knowing that nothing is ever missing in your life&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And this includes how amazing of a person you truly are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s something that was invented hundreds of years ago. At that time, it was also being mentioned as something which was &#8220;new&#8221; despite the fact that it had been around for thousands of years previously. Not only that but this is also something which is still being perpetuated throughout our society today&#8230;more than ever before.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are You Aware Of This Happiness Myth? - Because This Is Your Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are You Aware Of This Happiness Myth? - Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s something that was invented hundreds of years ago. At that time, it was also being mentioned as something which was &#8220;new&#8221; despite the fact that it had been around for thousands of years previously. Not only that but this is also something which is still being perpetuated throughout our society today&#8230;more than ever before.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2017\/06\/aware-happiness-myth.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-17T14:11:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cweiner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are You Aware Of This Happiness Myth? - Because This Is Your Life","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are You Aware Of This Happiness Myth? - Because This Is Your Life","og_description":"It&#8217;s something that was invented hundreds of years ago. 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