On happiness…
You will never find one answer to what makes you happy. There are many answers, and they change based on your current state.
People need to relax, but if all you do is sit on the beach, it gets old. People find meaning in work, but if all you do is work, it gets exhausting. People benefit from exercise, but if all you do is exercise, it gets unhealthy.
Happiness will always be fleeting because your needs change over time. The question is: what do you need right now?
The hedonic treadmill, which is also referred to as hedonic adaptation, is a metaphor for your set point of happiness. The idea here is that no matter how good or bad something makes you feel, you will eventually return to your original emotional state… regardless of what happens to you, good or bad, your level of happiness will eventually return to your baseline after the event occurs.
History seems to prove that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally, they reach a point where they can’t live without it.
Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it , you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.
It is impossible to have what you are seeking or you would already have it!
One sure way to happiness is to make other people a little happier.
Happiness is a byproduct of virtue.
We don’t control the world around us, only how we respond.
“Whether this moment is happy or not depends on you.
It’s you that makes the moment happy, not the moment that makes you happy.
Any moment can become a happy moment.”
~ Thic Nhat Hanh
“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
~ Seneca
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will. ”
~ Epictetus
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
~ Epictetus
“Almost nothing is needed for a happy life for he who has understood existence.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
"The punchline of life really is that you can’t become happy, you can only be happy."
~ Sam Harris
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.”
~ Immanuel Kant
A person's happiness from day to day has remarkably little to do with their material circumstances.
Certainly money can make a difference – but only when it lifts us out of poverty.
The worth of money is not in its possession but it’s use.
Once Maslow’s primary needs are met, more money changes little or nothing.
When you experience joy, remembering that ‘This too shall pass’ helps you savor the here and now. When you experience pain and sorrow, remembering that ‘This too shall pass’ reminds you that grief, like joy, is only temporary.
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.“
~ Epictetus
“There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path. “
~ Buddha
Happiness doesn't lend itself well to being chased.
“We consider ourselves fairly fortunate if there is still something to wish for, and to strive after, to keep up the game whereby desire constantly passes into satisfaction, and satisfaction into new desire – if the pace of this is swift, it is called happiness, and if it is slow, sorrow – and does not falter and come to the standstill that shows in dreadful, stultifying boredom, in lifeless yearning without a definite object, a deadening languor.”
~ Artie (The World as Will and Idea, p.85)
Don't chase happiness, rather practice contentment.
For contentment is a state of mind you can practice, but happiness is an emotion that comes and goes, just like the sun goes up and eventually goes down.