Happiness is less about doing and more about undoing.
How to undo? By doing inner work.
The happiness is there. You just have to “uninvite” the unwelcomed company that’s causing chaos in your mind.
Instant gratification is choosing pleasure now.
Delayed gratification is resisting pleasure now for (or in hope of) a more rewarding pleasure later.
The kind of pleasure we feel with instant gratification is not the same kind of pleasure that we feel with delayed gratification.
One is a superficial, fleeting feeling of pleasure—the other is a deep, lingering feeling of pleasure. Some examples:
That said, it would follow that we should delay gratification as much as possible in our lives.
And I would agree.
The more we delay gratification, the more of that deep, lingering feeling of pleasure—what I consider joy—we’ll have. However, the conversation doesn’t stop there.
I also don’t think we should always delay gratification.
If happiness is a recipe, and instant gratification are the sweet ingredients and delayed gratification are the bitter ones, we need to masterfully combine the two for healthy AND delicious meals.
Too much sweet and we’ll be eating pixie sticks all day (and feel awful).
Too much bitter and we’ll be eating spinach all day (and become bored).
We need to learn how to masterfully combine both for healthy, great-tasting meals.
Wait for happiness to arrive and you’ll likely be waiting for a while.
Chase happiness and you’ll likely end up running way more than you’d like to.
Make happiness…? Now, maybe that’s something we can do.
Tune in to this LIVE group audio discussion as my Co-Host, Samantha, and I dive in!
(Can’t see the audio link? Click here to view it in your browser.)
They are not the same thing.
Both have to do with acceptance, but in completely different ways.
Being content is accepting that what’s here is enough *and* taking a step forward along the hiking trail towards growth.
Being complacent is accepting that what’s here is enough *and* avoiding the hiking trail altogether to sit on the couch and watch TV.
It’s completely possible to be content *and* travel forward on a journey. Not because what’s here isn’t enough—but, because traveling forward on a journey is precisely how growth happens.
When you let content turn into complacency, you start to regress. Your awareness fades. Your comfort zone collapses in around you and suffocates your brain.
And eventually, because of a lack of growth, what’s “enough” will start to turn gray, dull, lackluster, unappealing, and unfulfilling.
And what will be left is not a lack of “enough,” but a lack of awareness that allows you to truly appreciate all that you have.
It’s precisely the challenge associated with growth that gives you the contrast needed to appreciate the enough.
And don’t take my word for it.
Take yourself through a really hard workout—one that’s harder than normal. Make it so that you’re truly exhausted by the end of it. And then take a sip of water.
It’s the same sip of water you always take—but, I guarantee, the sip after that killer workout will taste a helluva lot better than the other.
P.s. Today, I hosted a LIVE talk on Creating (not waiting for) Happiness and it was amazing. Listen to the playback here (~2 hours long & worth every minute).
I think happiness is a recipe.
One that is unique to each individual person.
Wait for the ingredients to cook themselves and you’ll be waiting an awful long-time.
Rush the cooking process and you’ll burn, contort, abuse, and otherwise mess up the meal.
There’s an art to cooking just like there’s an art to happiness.
And just like a chef would bring a level of presence and care to the kitchen when prepping meals, you too need to bring that same kind of energy to the preparation of your happiness in life.
One of my personal favorite recipes for happiness is:
With 3.5 cups of space left (in the day) to work with.
Mixed altogether and served with some sprinkles of spontaneity on top.
And it’s a formula that I loosely follow each day.
What you have to figure out for yourself is, what does your recipe consist of?
And are you preparing your batch of happiness fresh every day? Or are you trying to eat from stale batches of happiness that was prepared long ago?
Are you waiting for the ingredients to combine themselves? Are you rushing as you prepare your meals? Or are you taking your time and approaching your craft like a chef would?
Of all the recipes you have memorized in your life, this might be one of the most important to not only memorize—but to internalize.
Superficial happiness is a smiling mask that’s put over an unhappy face.
It can be quite convincing, too.
Not because people aren’t good at distinguishing masks versus faces—but because most people are wearing masks themselves.
And calling out your mask puts into question the mask they’re wearing.
…And most of us don’t want to talk about the face that’s hidden under our masks.
It’s precisely why we put masks on in the first place.
And so we carry on smiling and nodding at other people’s masks while we discreetly hide our upset and frown through our own. And that becomes a sort of accepted and forgotten about norm.
Every now and again though, we sit down with a person and they actually take their mask off.
Not to burden us. Not to complain. Not to shower sadness on our superficial happiness.
But, to share what’s real. To express something deeper than a portrayal of happiness. To give their vulnerabilities some space to breathe out from under the tight compression of plastic pressed up against their cheeks and forehead.
And what’s interesting is that the people who tend to wear their happiness masks less, and are able to share and express what’s real to them more, are often the ones who experience deeper joy as a result.
Because the byproduct of wearing a superficial mask of happiness—isn’t happiness.
Happiness is the byproduct of connecting more deeply to (and better understanding) ourselves.
When we exhale our desires we can breath in the happiness that was there all along.