29 Mar Simple Secret to a Happy Life
I’m well aware that happiness isn’t always easy.
But at the same time, happiness need not be overly complicated.
Sometimes, it’s the simplest things that make us happy and create a good life and one of them is almost certainly living in the here and now.
If you’re interested in the relationship between being present and being happy then read on …
via Psychology Today by Robert Puff
KEY POINTS
- Two things that can greatly improve our lives are engaging in the here and now and seeing life as play rather than work.
- As we develop the skill of being present, we will become happy. We realize that happiness dwells in the “here and now.”
- Being patient when things are frustrating will help transform life into play and less work.
Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
What is the secret to a happy life? If you knew what that secret was, could you focus on that? Wouldn’t that be wonderful!
If you think about successful people, they have one thing in common: they are great at something. Happy people are good at being happy.
While it may not always be easy, focusing on just two things can greatly improve our lives.
- Engage in the “here and now.”
- See life as play instead of work.
We will have a good life if we do these two things constantly. Though the concepts are easy to understand, actually doing them may be troublesome.
We don’t think of the “here and now” when thinking of the future or dwelling on the past. This is where the trouble comes. If our minds are in the past or future, we’re not here right now.
In athletics, people think about their past mistakes or think about what they can improve in the future. It’s rare in this area to be in the “here and now.” A term for this rare place is being in the “zone.” When we study athletes claiming to be in the “zone,” they focus on the “here and now.”
Why is it so difficult to be present?
As we navigate life, good things happen, like enjoying delicious foods and falling in love. This creates memories, and we want to repeat this. We start to think about making money to return to destinations we enjoyed in the past. We look for ways to retire or inherit a lot of money, so we never have to work again. Our desires create in us discontent for the “here and now.” We want the glory of past days and past desires.
Along the way, bad things happen. We may fall in love and then break up. Our hearts are devasted. We may fail at something, like a sporting event, and we are mocked or ridiculed. We remember this, and so we spend lots of time trying to prevent this from happening again. We may become consumed in fear and anxiety. We experience fear, desires, worries, and lust.
In the process of all this frustration, we are no longer in the “here and now.” We miss out on all the beauty around us. We are trying to control reality, and we really have little control over life. And although we sometimes win by controlling circumstances, often we do not…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE