Pursuit of happiness is your right, I know. I do appreciate to live in the only country on earth that acknowledges and protects the individual's right to freedom and happiness. It's huge and not to be taken for granted!
Yet, your right to be happy is not enough if you care to be happy. No one can make you happy: your country can't, your spouse or lover can't, your children can't. Sure, there are people around us who make and bake children for their--the parents'--happiness or as a device to "heal" their broken marriage. What horror for a child to grow up with parents who cripple their kids from day one with the weight of such impossible responsibility! Child abuse of the highest order.
Don't try to misunderstand me: of course, children add to your happiness! AND they will add to your problems. Such is life. But those of us who desire children and have kids IN ORDER TO be happier in life ought to burn in the hell of their daily misery. Guilt is the end product of a doomed undertaking of this kind. Guilt ridden kids who realize they will never be able to satisfy their insatiable and whacko parents. Later on, the crooked parents will--hopefully--grow into lifelong felt guilt for having committed this crime.
There is no long route to your happiness. We could go on and on, to house vs. apartment, living in the mountains or at the beach, being financially well off or struggling: your circumstances, as ideal as they may look from someone else's perspective, are NOT guaranteed resources for your happiness. Not even doing something you love is better suited to make you happy than kvetching along for decades on a disliked job. Yeah, but more money in the bank would definitely make me feel better. Horse shit! We are more creative inventing reasons for our misery than we are willing to be happy.
Studies show that happy people are not wealthier than unhappy individuals. Happy people are not healthier, and they don't have less problems in life than their miserable friends. Regardless of their income, happy people seem to donate more money to charity--to religious and non-religious causes--they even donate more blood and time. The happy ones also appear to belong to religious communities of their choice.
All fine and dandy: it includes the answer but it isn't the answer of how to be happy. Here it is--well, if you can take it, that is:
You cannot become happy. You can only BE happy. Instant happiness kicks in when you ADMIT that you, in fact, are happy already no matter how your life's circumstances may present themselves currently.
It's a tough one, I do know, but you got to bypass the reasoning of your intellect every single time if you care about your happiness and about the happiness of those around you. Being happy is not a selfish act: being miserable is! And both are somewhat contagious. It's not easy to display how happy you are when your loved ones are emotionally down. Happy individuals may feel the need to subdue their true emotional make up in public and especially in the presence of a depressed family member. The one feeling the "emptiness of the big black hole" controls her human environment. No one dares to admit happiness around such a person.
Unhappy and miserable people are the greatest egotists you will find! Don't fall in love with them. Don't marry them ("oh, I will change him"). Stay the hell out of the way of moping people! Unhappy people are the scourge of the earth.
Admit to being happy, baby! Almost always, you'll have to do it in the face of adverse forces. Is it worth it? You decide.
Happy Independence Day!
Egbert
P.S.: Final version of my book 'How to Better Hate Your Job' is not in print yet, but you may pick up an "Advanced Reader's Copy" through my website (http://www.moneybymistake.com/). Paperback is $11 or it'll cost you $1 if you want to download a copy. Yep, a single buck for the entire book!
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