We are constantly perusing it but find it difficult to find. I am talking about happiness of course. As a society happiness is a much sought after commodity. We go to great length to ensure happiness. The divorce rate in this country and the amount of children brought up by just one parent shows that we are prepared to destroy the lives of others in order to obtain this elusive thing we call happiness.
We marry and divorce; we change jobs and careers all in the name of achieving happiness only to find that after all our efforts we don’t actually obtain it in the end. So why can’t we seem to reach what we are deeply yearning for?
The answer is because most of us are searching for the wrong type of happiness. The thrill of the moment might give us an adrenalin rush that makes us feel good temporarily, however, it does not have any long term effect. Few of us have long-standing strategies for obtaining happiness.
The most important thing to do on the journey to finding happiness is to realize that happiness is synonymous with contentment—that deep feeling of satisfaction that wells up inside of us from time to time. The key to achieving this is to live a life that is congruent with what the Kabbalists call our Pnimiut haratzon or our authentic self.
So many of us go through life not feeling completely happy with our careers, often we feel trapped by our professional life. For some reason the thing we trained so hard for in college is not a source of contentment when we gradate and actually start work. We continue on nonetheless and risk hitting a midlife crises down the road.
The problem is that we choose our careers based on a shallow understanding on happiness. We think that money will make us happier and we therefore train for jobs that are “hot” at the time and will bring in a good salary. In fact we should be following our authentic self and innermost passion when choosing a career.
Research has shown that we adjust very quickly to higher standards of living and within a few months our happiness returns to the level it was prior to the living standard change. Clearly, the only way to achieving true contentment and therefore happiness is by living live in a manner that fits in with our pnimiut Haratzon, our innermost passions and authentic self.
The way this works is rather simple. On occasion we find ourselves completely engrossed in something to the extent that we lose all sense of time and consciousness of self. This is like finding a soul mate we feel completely at ease when we spend time with them.
We can lose all sense of time and self when we are with our soul mate. Similarly when we are doing something that is in congruence with our authentic self and passions we will lose ourselves in that task or action. When we are done we might even turn around and say we had fun. Unfortunately many people work at things that the hate so that they can do their hobbies which they love. So most of their days are spent following a career that is not in step with their authentic self in order that they should be able to do hobbies on the side that make them happy.
In fact it should be the opposite way round. We should spend most of our time doing the things we love and are passionate about. If we are passionate about something we will be highly motivated at that thing and therefore will be good at it.
It follows therefore that we should be able to make a living at that particular thing. It amazes me that there are some people who love photography as a hobby but do jobs that they hate for a living. They should make their passion for photography into a living and then never have to work a day again. As long as a person’s work involves an expression of their Pnimiut Haratzon and inner passions and desires coupled with the service of others they will find contentment and thus be happy in their work life.
There are many more examples of the same phenomenon. Happiness is inner contentment and it will only be achieved through living a life that follows ones own inner passion and authentic self. Pursue that and happiness will show up along the way.