Happiness Is The Way, Not The Destination

Yeah, it’s a cheesy cliché.

It’s still true, though.

The problem with clichés is that they get repeated so often that people forget the deeper meaning behind them.

It’s like remembering the lyrics to a song, but forgetting the melody.

The deeper feeling behind the words gets lost.

The universal truth to which the words were pointing is forgotten and only the shallow understanding of the words themselves remain.

So it helps to take some time every now and then to remind ourselves of the simple truths we’ve forgotten.

Happiness is NOT a goal.

It’s a mood.

And your mood is something you choose.

You choose your mood by choosing what you focus on.

Happiness is NOT something you need to earn.

Working hard and achieving goals provides satisfaction, not happiness.

Changing the circumstances in your life that stress you out, hold you down, or make you feel overwhelmed and frustrated… provides satisfaction, not happiness.

Satisfaction is a temporary feeling.

Satisfaction fades shortly after a goal is achieved.

Happiness is the permanent, underlying mood that you experience along the way, throughout the endless cycle of feeling dissatisfied, aiming for a goal, and then feeling the satisfaction of achieving that goal…

If you choose to do so.

And it’s a choice I highly recommend.

Because when you choose to be happy instead of morose, you perform better. You reach your goals faster because you can think clearly and act effectively.

When you choose to be grateful instead of needy, you make it easier for the people around you to open up and connect with you. You actually help others to make the choice to be happy by choosing it yourself.

And making this choice – choosing to focus on the things that make you feel gratitude and happiness – isn’t something you need to achieve…

Happiness is just a choice that you can make right now so that you can achieve everything else a whole lot easier.