I’ve discovered and continue to discover many surprising and contrasting things about happiness as I go through my journey of life. One of which is happiness is not about control, it’s actually much more about flow and letting go. It’s kind of like water, in some ways we can learn a lot about water in regards to life and the flow of living. What if happiness is more of an energy state? Or a state of being, rather than a destination? Or rather, the destination is to the state of being.
In Costa Rica the people there say “Pura Vida” A LOT lol. This means “Pure Life.” So I had to research and look it up to understand better. From what I could gather, it seems to mean to be happy regardless of your outer circumstances. That happiness does not come from the outside things but just the daily decision to be happy regardless of what happens. I know I know, sounds easier than it is. Also, it’s kind of un-American. We literally have the “pursuit of happiness” in our constitution as a right. This just takes the pursuit part out and says, just be happy now and stop waiting to attain something. Happiness is a mindset, and the more you need to look to the outside to have everything be just a ‘certain way’ to be happy, the further it will be from you. Like chasing a carrot on a stick.
The thing is, the way our mind is designed it’s almost effortless to look for the negative and what is bothering us or what we would like to be different. But that is a great recipe for unhappiness and to see the world through a negative lens.
Deciding to have a mindset of being happy no matter what is going on around you does not mean you aren’t paying attention to problems. It’s just you aren’t allowing those problems to dominate your life and you detach from them. You don’t allow them to disrupt your inner peace.
Again, all of this is easier said than done. It takes practice. It doesn’t mean other things from the outside won’t help boost your happiness. It’s just about breaking a dependency on outer things for happiness. It’s a shift in mindset, which alone can be liberating.
“There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path.”
