You have a great job, a successful partner, children who are growing up smoothly, a family that loves you, and a few friends to spend your free time with. You have everything in life and still you are not happy. And it is not that you are one of those people without illusions or objectives, on the contrary, you set your goals and you are lucky to achieve them. So why aren’t you happy? It is inevitable that you feel guilty for that dissatisfaction with life when there are people who have nothing, but you cannot help feeling unhappy either.
Looking for happiness the wrong way
- We are used to basing our happiness on achievements, on the goals achieved. That is why we are surprised when, after having achieved our goals, we still do not experience that long-awaited feeling of happiness. And it is not that we should not maintain the illusion of achieving new goals and generating new dreams, but rather that we have to learn to enjoy all that we are achieving.
- For most people, the achievement of goals is reduced to material things, such as a good job, a good salary, a home of their own, a relationship with a partner without problems and, the only thing that escapes this materialism is, perhaps, health. This shows that we are going down the wrong path towards happiness.
- And it is true that we need the material to be happy; we need a job that fills us up, a decent salary and a house to live in. If we can’t be happy with all that we’ve achieved, it’s because we don’t know how to enjoy it, how to value all those things and focus on them so that they help us in our emotional well-being.
Places to find happiness
- Once we have our needs met and have discovered that they don’t make us happier, we have to assume that happiness may be found elsewhere. Fundamentally, happiness is found in the emotions, in the sensations and in the experiences, and not so much in the material.
- The pride of having achieved that job, the satisfaction of finally having the house of your dreams and the security that your stable relationship provides you, are the sensations that you have to highlight to start removing dissatisfaction from your life. Live the experience more than the result of that experience.
- And a secret that we have found to feel happier is generosity, a change in attitude in our behavior by stopping looking at ourselves so much. Looking around and discovering that there are people you can help to be happier will be the final push for you to be happy too.