Quest for a Happy Life

(4-minute read) – Happiness is one thing. But a quest for a happy life is quite another.

Happiness comes and goes with our moods and circumstances. It is here today and gone tomorrow.

On the contrary, a happy life is a reasonably constant experience. It gently increases over the years of our lives if we’re on the right developmental path – despite the short term fluctuations in happiness.

A happy life is something we can work towards. It is perhaps the greatest quest – and consciously or unconsciously, the most common and fundamental quest of human beings.

The majority of us go about this quest all wrong though.

We think a happy life comes from money and pleasure. Or from having the ‘right’ people or circumstances in our life. Or from something out there. But wisdom traditions and our own life-experiences as we age tell us this is false. These things only bring us fleeting happiness. They leave us worse off when they’re scarce.

In fact, nothing external can account for a happy life. The quest for a happy life occurs totally internally. It is something prevailing inside us regardless of any external things. Usually it grows with age, if we have been true to the quest. Ultimately we only can say on our death beds, “Yes, I lived a happy life.” Or not.

So a happy life is a final end or goal that encompasses the totality of one’s life. It is not something that can be gained or lost in a few hours, like pleasurable sensations. It takes an intent to grow, to find meaning and to contemplate the deepest aspects of who we are and what makes us tick.

The secrets to a successful quest

Secret One: Delayed gratification.

Delayed gratification breaks dependence on the things that bring fleeting happiness and opens the door for us to find the true inner source of a happy life.

Leave pleasure for tomorrow. Then leave it for tomorrow again. The more you delay gratification, the less bound you will feel to the objects of your happiness. And the more you will experience an abiding happy life.

This may sound counter-intuitive. But it is the advice of many wise minds throughout the ages. There is nothing new about it.

For example, the great philosopher, Aristotle, taught that a happy life comes from the development of character and the acquiring of virtues such as courage, justice, temperance, benevolence, and prudence. Aristotle would be strongly critical of the modern culture of “instant gratification”. He lamented, “the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts”.

There is no happy life for the beasts… only ups and downs, instincts and stimulants of pain and pleasure, dictated by physico-chemical bodies and environmental conditions.

Secret Two: Balance

A happy life depends on balance.

We must discern carefully where the balance point is. It differs for everyone so don’t try to copy others – that is the surest path to desperately unhappy imbalance.

For example, it is no good applying delayed gratification of say sexual pleasure because your favourite inspiration is a celibate monk. Your balance is different to his. It’s no good working without a holiday until you have a nervous breakdown. Each one of us must find his or her own balance points.

Balance as a way to a happy life is also nothing new.

Aristotle talks of maintaining ‘the mean’, which is the balance between two excesses. Buddha taught ‘the middle path’ as a peaceful way of life which negotiated the extremes of harsh asceticism and sensual pleasure seeking.

Meditation is the way

Practicing delayed gratification and discerning balance are challenges in our culture of media exposure, information overload and ultra-stimulation. The noise, the bright lights and the rush of modern life make delayed gratification and balance seem far off, even daunting.

What’s the point of delayed gratification and balance, I hear people ask, when life is short and we can get all we can now? We are empowered to get all we can. Are we not entitled?

It is much easier to keep grabbing onto fleeting happiness tagged to a million and one attachments, dependencies and short-term pleasures. This is the habit of life in a world of billboards and three-minute YouTube stars. Even our minds are stuck in a habit of attachment – attachment to thoughts and emotions. Silence outside and silence inside are foreign concepts to many modern people.

The only way to break free of this lifestyle is to actively seek quiet – to commit to some time every day when we slow down and quieten down. I recommend this time should be dedicated to meditation. Ultimately that is all meditation is – a slowing down and quietening down to let go of the habitual garbage that keeps our monkey minds preoccupied and to let go of the passing stuff out there and within.

So the fundamental path to the quest for a happy life is meditation, because meditation enables delayed gratification and discernment of balance.

Summary: Sit quietly. Say a little prayer. Then introduce your sacred word (also called a mantra) into your mind. Repeat it gently whenever your mind starts to get involved in thoughts or emotions. Take about twenty or twenty-five minutes.

Explore the rest of my blog articles for more on meditation.

You can find out more about meditation, mindfulness and spiritual intelligence on my seminars.