Why do we choose unhappiness? I believe that most people suffer from an innocent confusion. We are convinced that in order to gain long-term happiness we must change our external circumstances (i.e., get a college degree, bear children, find a perfect lover, buy a house and earn a million dollars). Changing these external circumstances is no easy matter; it takes real effort to obtain these goals. Additionally we have discovered that emotional pain, especially fear, anger and guilt, drives us to take action. We are willing to endure self-imposed emotional pain in the short term to gain long-term happiness. The problem is that instead of using self-imposed emotional pain on a temporary basis, we use it all the time; we continue to use it even after we have obtained the initial goal. The result is never ending emotional pain.

Why do you hustle every day at work? Is it because you are afraid? You make yourself feel anxious at work because you realize that it works. You have discovered that the fear of not meeting deadlines helps you to meet deadlines. Unfortunately, when you choose fear at your workplace you are also choosing not to be happy. This anxiety begins to permeate your whole life, soon you find yourself feeling time-pressure when you are vacuuming your own house or doing the dishes at home. Now you are chronically choosing unhappiness.

Do you remember the last time you said an inappropriate comment? You punished yourself with guilt so that you would remember not to say that type of comment again. Well, the method worked. Since then your speech has been flawless. Consider this; would it possible to remember to refrain from inappropriate comments without guilt? Would it be possible to meet deadlines at work without anxiety? The answer could help you to choose happiness all the time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.