How to Find Happiness

 How to Find Happiness

Many years ago, I came across a book by Anthony de Mello called Awareness¹. De Mello was an Indian Jesuit priest whose writing was condemned² by the Roman Catholic Church. To me, he is a great source of inspiration, and he has much to say about happiness and pain.

How to find happinessLife is easy, life is delightful³. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings.

One of De Mello’s key messages is that, by nature, life is not a struggle. Attachment⁶ – greed, craving⁴, ambition – is the cause of all misery⁷, and so to be detached is to be happy.

Does this mean we should have no preferences? Should we not want to achieve more? Should we not desire and seek out the good things in life? I think it would be absurd to say that we should have no preference between different experiences and conditions, but a distinction needs to be made between preference and attachment.

We are surrounded by contrast, and one can choose – and enjoy – different experiences, without being attached to them. To enjoy someone’s company without being clingy, to feel great pleasure when watching the sunset on a cool summer evening without mourning the coming of the night – we can have preferences and make choices about what we experience without craving them.

We are free to choose – and to prefer – some conditions over others. But when our preferences become cravings, then life becomes a struggle to achieve these conditions, and once we have achieved them, we start to worry about losing them.

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An analogy might be going for a long walk in the country – there will be various different scenes, and each one can be enjoyed. Perhaps you have some preference for a certain view or a particular spot on the walk, and you might linger in one place for a while, but all of the different parts of the walk can be enjoyed along the way.

Happiness, it seems, is to accept the world as it is, enjoying the journey as we pass through and being appreciative⁸ of each stage on the way.

If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers⁹ than to carpet the whole of the earth

Trying to change the world in a forceful way is a foolish endeavor. Changing yourself may, in time, change things around you, but to ‘take on’ the world will probably not achieve much. Force may result in change, but it will be temporary and easily reversed. Real change is the result of quiet, patient working with the natural flow of things, just as water can cut a deep valley in a landscape.

Lao Tze, the semi-mythical Taoist sage⁵, is said to have written in the Tao Te Ching, ‘By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.‘

The only thing you can truly change is yourself. In his book Choice Theory, William Glasser writes that we cannot force anyone to do anything. We are often brought up to think that we can change other people by our own efforts, but this ‘external control psychology’ is deeply misguided and leads to untold¹⁰ pain and misery.

We are responsible for our own happiness, and cannot derive¹¹ happiness from the outside. Many (perhaps most) people, seem to think that happiness is caused by the outside world – including other people – conforming to certain conditions. People think things like, ‘I’ll be happy when I have my degree,’ or ‘I’ll be content when I’ve got a certain level of income,’ or ‘I’d be happy if my husband/wife/son/brother started behaving better.’ But relying on something outside to bring happiness is a mistake. It abdicates¹² responsibility for our happiness and takes away our power. The truth is that we can only change ourselves, our attitudes, our thoughts, and our own level of happiness.

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head.

If we can change only ourselves and not the world around us, it follows that we can be happier by changing our thoughts. Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor-philosopher, observed this when he wrote ‘Our life is what our thoughts make it,’ and this is a sentiment which has been echoed by countless¹³ writers. From Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent-Peale to Dale Carnegie, the vital importance of our thoughts in determining our experience of life has been emphasized again and again.

In summary, life should be easy and things can be achieved without a great deal of effort, and we can experience this ease by working with the natural grain of things, and not trying to use force. The way we think about things is the most important factor in our happiness and our achievement.

1 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

2 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

3 delightful   

adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的

参考例句：

• We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
• Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。

4 craving   

n.渴望,热望

参考例句：

• a craving for chocolate 非常想吃巧克力
• She skipped normal meals to satisfy her craving for chocolate and crisps. 她不吃正餐，以便满足自己吃巧克力和炸薯片的渴望。

5 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。

6 attachment   

n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附

参考例句：

• She has a great attachment to her sister.她十分依恋她的姐姐。
• She's on attachment to the Ministry of Defense.她现在隶属于国防部。

7 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

8 appreciative   

adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的

参考例句：

• She was deeply appreciative of your help.她对你的帮助深表感激。
• We are very appreciative of their support in this respect.我们十分感谢他们在这方面的支持。

9 slippers   

n. 拖鞋

参考例句：

• a pair of slippers 一双拖鞋
• He kicked his slippers off and dropped on to the bed. 他踢掉了拖鞋，倒在床上。

10 untold   

adj.数不清的，无数的

参考例句：

• She has done untold damage to our chances.她给我们的机遇造成了不可估量的损害。
• They suffered untold terrors in the dark and huddled together for comfort.他们遭受着黑暗中的难以言传的种种恐怖，因而只好挤在一堆互相壮胆。

11 derive   

v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• We shall derive much benefit from reading good novels.我们将从优秀小说中获得很大好处。

12 abdicates   

放弃（职责、权力等）( abdicate的第三人称单数 )； 退位，逊位

参考例句：

13 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。