Are you pursuing complete happiness……stop! You’re wasting your time.

When many are asked what they truly desire, they usually say ‘happiness’. I used to be happy to hear that answer for happiness is a very easy goal to achieve – or so I thought. Isn’t it simply about finding that which brings smiles to your face? Come on – how hard can it be?

When asked ‘What will bring happiness to you?’ the answers vary. From career success, friends and family, a life partner, a big house, a very cool car, trips around the world to fame and fortune, it’s different strokes for different folks.

But when asked the biggest question, ‘Are you happy in your fame, fortune, ton of friends, great family, good spouse, etc.?’, many of us quickly nod in the affirmative but after a few seconds, we find ourselves wondering if we’re really and truly happy. ‘Am I happy now I have the kind of spouse I always wanted? Am I happy now that this job/promotion is mine? Am I happy now I’ve written a bestseller? Is my life complete now I have all the money I want / need? Am I happy now I’m famous? Am I truly happy as I am? Hmmm…

Complete happiness is a very strange thing. Many pursue it but it seems we never truly catch up to that perfect state of being. Oh, we achieve it in bits and pieces at different moments in our lives – at the cinema while watching a really nice movie, at a family gathering surrounded by loved ones, at Christmas or New year when you’re just glad to have seen the end of one year and the beginning of another, at the birth of a child, when an old friend calls to say hi, when it’s raining and you’re all snuggled in bed with a good book or your favourite TV show, when there’s a work free day, when the boss who’s been tormenting you gets transferred or promoted, when your constipated belly finally gives way to a really nice and relieving poop (ahhh!!). Happiness comes to us all but when you really think about it, are you ever completely happy? 
 
Personally, I feel there is a void within every one that can never be filled on this earth. I believe in a higher power, God, and that the void is there for only that higher power to fill, and probably, only when we make heaven…if we’re lucky and blessed.

Or else, why is it even in seemingly perfect moments, we sometimes find ourselves taking a step back from within and thinking ‘Hmm.’ I find myself growing especially introspective on very happy occasions like birthdays, Christmas, New year, etc. These are my happiest days and yet in those moments, I still find myself weirdly wondering what my life is about, if I’m living it in the best possible way and if I’m truly happy.

 What of the birthday blues? It is such a blessing to have made another year and yet, quietly in your insides, you feel this weirdness still without knowing exactly why. Or during the New Year’s, as you happily hang around the noisy celebrations, or in bed after it, you feel this strange emotions (which is not happiness or sadness exactly). What of the moment when you realize that a certain dream has come true and in the midst of your joyful celebration, you still feel that small tingle that is not as happy as the rest of you.

If complete happiness was possible, why are the rich and famous not really happy? Why was Michael Jackson a seemingly sad, strange man? The guy was a legend whose home was an amusement park and yet …. Why do we see someone who’s achieved everything they could possibly want in this life still feel depressed, lonely or alone in the midst of plenty? Why are many successful people treated for depression? It’s because within each of us exists a void and when these people achieve the success they believed would bring them true happiness, they realize the big irony that nothing on this earth has the capacity to fill that void.

So, for all those chasing goals or dreams in the hopes that it will help them catch complete happiness and fill that void, realize this – you are wasting your time so stop! Nothing on this planet can make you completely happy….or completely fill the void which is that sense of emptiness you feel sometimes.

However, in the alternative, you can determine to catch as many happy moments as you can in your lifetime by taking the decision to choose how the things around you affect you. You decide to be happy, whether you’ve achieved your life goals or not. You decide to be happy whether your spouse, or family, loves you like you want or not. You decide to be happy whether that promotion comes or not. You decide to be happy whether your birthday is a reminder of how old you’re getting or not – after all, if you pray to live long, then you should expect to have many birthdays. You decide to be happy whether you’re the prettiest or richest in the room or not. You decide….and stop pursuing complete happiness for that is probably only possible in heaven.