I realized today that I want something for nothing. I want my cake and I want to eat it too. I want to be happy, yet I do not want to expend any effort. There are other ways in which I want something for nothing regarding my happiness:

1. I want to be uncommonly happy, and yet I want to keep my opinions about the world that make me into a victim.
2. I want to be uncommonly happy, yet I do not want to change my attitudes at home and work.
3. I want to be uncommonly happy, and I do not want to think consciously about happiness.
4. I want to be uncommonly happy, but I do not want to challenge my negative thoughts.

It is clear to me now that nature simply does not work this way.

Happiness is voluntary. One has to decide to be happy, and do this on purpose. After you consciously get happy you can coast for a while and allow yourself to enjoy the happiness you created without effort. But like riding a bike, at some point you have to start pedaling again to maintain your speed.

There is a kind of happiness bank. You can’t simply make withdrawals of happy emotions for free and then spend this happiness in your life. You have to generate happiness from within, and this takes effort. Then you can then store up your happiness in the bank. Afterwards, you can make your withdrawals of happiness and coast for a while. But eventually you will have to work to generate happiness again.  

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.