#5. Happiness is like manure; if you don’t spread it, it smells terrible.
One of the most significant revelations of my life was to understand that existential emptiness prevented me from being happy.
I used to fill that void with drugs, junk food, alcohol, and nicotine.
None of it worked. It only made the emptiness I felt in my chest bigger.
I became a black hole capable of absorbing all the light of those who wanted to help me.
Logically, I ended up alone.
Filling that emptiness in the right way was not easy. But in doing so, I discovered what true happiness was. — A serene joy, a well-being that allows you to be at ease within your skin despite life’s adverse circumstances.
It’s not easy to achieve that kind of happiness. Let alone maintain it.
It’s still hard for me. But I am reasonably happy when I remind myself and apply these ten points.
- Be yourself. Don’t imitate others; don’t compare yourself to anyone but yourself. Don’t pretend to be who you are not, just to fit in. To pretend is to lie. And lying to others is living inside a nightmare (I speak from experience). The liar who lies to himself and others cannot be happy because it is impossible to live among shit and not smell it.
- The people you are most reactive with are the ones you should be least reactive with. I was with my mother; she was the enemy in my head; when I lowered my reactivity towards her, I realized that a) she wasn’t so bad, and b) I wasn’t so good. Life has taught me that the anger you have towards others, on many occasions, is towards yourself, but your victimhood does not let you see it.
- A good friend can believe in you even if you don’t, but he needs your collaboration to get you out of the hole you have put yourself in. Besides, to be a teacher, you must first be a student. The key is to let the right people into your life. And listen to your wise counsel. Stop pushing away the people who love you well. And start accepting every helping hand. Pride and happiness do not walk on the same sidewalk.
- You will not see the light if you spend your days seeing everything black. Mastering your moods is crucial to make your seeds of happiness blossom efficiently. It would be best to learn to get out of your dense attitudes, such as negativity or anger. And for that, you have to cultivate a good sense of humor. Life often seems like a bad joke, and if you don’t have a sense of humor, it is tough to be happy.
- Happiness is like manure; if you don’t spread it, it smells terrible. — Many people approach spirituality for selfish reasons: to be more focused, to be more productive, to have less anxiety, to achieve enlightenment, you name it. The problem is that their spirituality is born from the ego and ends up in the ego. Imagine spirituality as a tree that bears fruit; what good are the fruits if they don’t feed anyone? They are of no use. And many people bear fruit but then have no mercy or charity. And that is why they are unhappy. Because the fruits eventually fall off the branch of the tree of happiness and rot on the ground. This mistake is made by more people than you think. Everyone wants to be prosperous and happy. Still, along the way, they become greedy and fearful rich people who fear losing their position or well-being and isolate themselves from the world in golden prisons, and where there is fear, there can be no happiness. All the good you do to others, you do to yourself; if there are no “others,” you do no good to anyone, and consequently, you do not do it to yourself.
- Everything that stops growing dies. It would be best to have a sense of progress so that happiness is constant within you. I am not talking about winning. You don’t need to win all the time but to progress. Besides, the more you go, the more you learn, and to know, it is essential to lose. Every child learns to walk by falling and getting up. Defeats are crucial to learning, and learning is necessary to progress. As progress makes your happiness more consistent, we can establish that all lasting happiness is born from daring to lose to learning to win.
- If you are not able to control your instincts, your instincts will end up dominating you. — Happiness, a superior quality of the intellect, has nothing to do with the lower passions. The low passions focus on the instant gratification of desires and lead us to excess and self-destruction. Therefore, you cannot be happy. You have to be moderate in your actions so that passions do not end up becoming addictions and you, their slave. Denying yourself things is fundamental to being happy. And they don’t teach you this at school. The ability to renounce is critical to being happy. If you are unable to say no, you will put your ego in charge of your life, and that will not make you happy; on the contrary, the ego always wants more and more.
- Do not anesthetize yourself emotionally. Happiness is an emotion, and therefore, it is felt physically. And if your heart is anesthetized to the pain of others and life, that absence of sensitivity will hinder you from feeling happiness. A sensitive heart is a heart that is capable of suffering a lot but also of loving a lot. A sensitive heart is a heart capable of being happy. You cannot smile without being willing to cry.
- Don’t forget this little mantra: “Don’t insist, let it flow. Don’t look for it; let it find you. Please don’t hold it back. If it wants to go, don’t force it, don’t force it. Because when something or someone comes into your life, and it is for you, there is no need to go begging. And that will make you unhappy. To be happy, you must flow like water and not force things. Forcing is always a reason for unhappiness.
- Keep your eyes clear. When your eyes are interested in something materialistic, you can only see through the glass of selfishness. The same happens with lust, with envy, with anger, and with all dense emotions. It would be best to see with eyes full of faith, hope, and good intentions. If you don’t have a vision full of positive emotions, you end up becoming a cynical person who only sees the evil in the hearts of others, and that’s not the way to be happy. You must stop seeing others as objects and start seeing them as people. Only then can you experience what happiness is because pleasure is not happiness, even if it has been sold to you as such.
These tips will help you to have a more serene and happy life.
A virtual hug.
AG
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