A Practical Guide to a Happy Life: Happiness vs Life Satisfaction

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

People spend their lives looking for happiness. Everyone is concerned about the question of how to live happily and constantly be in this flow. But the state of happiness is a very unstable state. Our sense of self can change depending on which foot we got up on today, what we dreamed about and in what phase the moon is today.

Happiness is fleeting and fickle. Contentedness, on the other hand, is a much more stable state. The question of whether you are satisfied with your life is much easier to answer than to determine whether you are happy or not?

Maybe instead of the constant pursuit of happiness, it's time to slow down a little and focus on the feeling of satisfaction from life? The first causes neuroses, the second - gives calmness and confidence in the future.

Leo Babauta believes that before embarking on a quest for happiness, you need to find your own path of pleasure from life.

Many people mistakenly believe that life satisfaction depends on a person's social status and business success. But in reality, this is not at all the case. Many successful, rich, and famous people may be dissatisfied with their lives, while the most ordinary (and even the poor) people can feel complete peace and gratitude for the opportunity to live.

And it levels out. This means that both rich and poor can get satisfaction from life. Both famous and ordinary people. This feeling makes everyone equal. And learning it is much easier than catching the ever-elusive happiness by the tail.

The Path of Satisfaction

At the age of 5, we could dance in public places to the music we heard and we didn't care what others thought of us. But over time, growing up, we have lost the ability to be direct and not constantly rely on someone else's opinion. Children know that everyone loves them, that they are beautiful, smart - that they are the best! Adults, on the other hand, need constant approval from outsiders to feel confident. They need social proof of their talents. Hence all the problems.

First of all, as adults, we must again learn to trust ourselves.

Our relationship with ourselves is no different from our relationship with someone else. They also need to be constantly worked on.

The second problem is that we constantly judge ourselves. We compare ourselves to ideal models in all areas. We want us to have a perfect body. We want to achieve certain success both in personal development and in our business. We want to travel the world, learn languages, paint, write books. And with all this, we also want to be ideal parents.

Do you think all of the above, in perfect execution, can fit into one simple person? I think not. And Leo thinks too;)

The path to a life that we will be truly satisfied with lies in self-acceptance. We must let go of all these ideals, stop judging ourselves, and learn to trust ourselves.

Changing habits and life satisfaction

Many people think that being satisfied with life means doing nothing and lying on the beach sipping a cocktail and enjoying another incredible sunset.

In fact, life satisfaction starts with change. But this also needs to be approached wisely. Most people want to change themselves first. Change the parts that you don't like and that we think are imperfect. And this is wrong! This is a vicious circle, because there is always something to change or improve. And there is no limit to perfection, remember?

By changing yourself in this way, you will constantly seek happiness from external sources. Happiness must be inside.

Satisfaction with life is not about lying on the beach. You can do your favorite work and even if it is taken away from you, you will still be happy with your life, because you can help other people. Or find a new job and realize that now you are moving on and everything is even better.

Contentment is an internal sensation that cannot be taken from external sources.

Practice

And now the main question is how to achieve this state?

There are three main things you need to learn:

Cultivate self-confidence. The only way to correct your lack of self-confidence is to do it gradually, in small steps. If you were an untrustworthy friend who wanted to fix everything and get back on track, you probably wouldn't start by asking your friends to trust you with their lives right away. This is wrong, because no one will trust right away like this (especially if there were more than enough mistakes). Trust is built on little things. You need to start small, eventually discovering more and more.

Make a promise to yourself to drink a glass of water every morning after bed. And stick to the word clearly. If you can hold out for two weeks, then it will be easier and you can continue with something more serious. For example, give up fatty foods, or promise to exercise every morning. Or go to bed on time and get up early in the morning.

The mistake many people make is that they immediately grab onto serious and difficult things and make themselves practically impossible promises.

Pay attention to your ideals. The second problem with life satisfaction is the pursuit of inflated ideals. As mentioned above, in one person it is extremely difficult to fit a successful job, a strong family, travel, children, self-education, hobbies, an ideal body, and so on and so forth. These images are imposed on us by the media - glossy magazines, TV shows and advertisements.

Looking at the cover of a fashion magazine, we can see the successful, the handsome, the rich and the famous. But happy? No one will tell us the whole truth, and the Photoshop masters will try so that the model itself may not recognize herself in the photograph. We will never know how happy and satisfied a public person is with life. Why is it public! Many close (seemingly) friends may not admit that their reality is not as great as they are trying to show. But at the same time, we constantly try to comply with the standards imposed on us.

The most important thing is that we must discard all that is superfluous, all the husks and learn to love ourselves for who we really are. Learn to love and accept yourself as real and unique.

Letting go of these ideals. After we have accepted ourselves, we must let go of the ideals imposed on us. And stop comparing yourself. You cannot compare white and hot. All people are different. Everyone has their own inclinations, talents, preferences and values. In pursuit of images, we lose our real selves and no longer understand what we really want. And do we do what we want, or what others want? Or is it just fashionable now?

Individuality is a complex concept. Each person is a certain set of traits and inclinations of those people with whom he lives (his relatives) and with whom he intersects throughout his life (friends, colleagues, enemies). But the core still remains unchanged. This is something that drives us, and neither friends nor relatives can change it.

And when we stop comparing ourselves. When we learn to accept ourselves as real and the real world. Then we will stop being upset because the neighbor's grass is greener, and his wife's legs are longer. And then we can truly enjoy life and all that it gives us.

And in conclusion, I just can not help but recall one wonderful film "The Jones Family", which very harshly shows what false ideals and the desire to conform to them can lead to.