20 - Where is HAPPINESS?

In this episode of Living Deeper Lives I ask a very simple question: Where is happiness?

The answer is far more elusive and complicated than we first imagined. Yet when we find it, it is far simpler than we imagined.

Happiness is something that seems to elude many although that is the one thing we are all searching for.

I'm your host Steven Webb and I help people with active minds and busy lives enjoy inner peace.

Transcript

Where is happiness? Try to pinpoint where happiness is right now. I'll just give you a few seconds. It's quite a simple question to ponder upon. And it's something I've been thinking about recently. So, where is happiness? It's not so easy to locate, is it? It's not a place, it's not an object, it's not somewhere out there, it's not a place you need to get to. It's a feeling. So, what is happiness?

That sounds like the question on today's podcast. I'm Steven Webb and this is Living Deeper Lives and also Stillness in the Storms podcast. And this podcast is for you, if you have an active mind and you have a busy life, and you don't have time to sit and meditate for hours every day, but you still want a little inner peace.

Happiness, what is it? Where is it? How do we get it? We all want it as children, what do you want to be when you grow up? Well, I want to be this, I want to be that because we think it's going to make us happy. And as parents, whenever you ask a parent, what do you want your kid to be when they get older, they might say a doctor or something like that. But above all, they always come back and say, “I would like my child to be happy.” And I think that's what we want for our partner, our children, our parents, everybody, we want them to be happy.

But what is happy? What does it mean to be happy? If I asked you when you're happy, so why are you happy? You're very often might mention something on the outside world, “Well, I just got a job promotion or I just got a pay rise or I just passed an exam, got a new car, just start a new relationship” or something or just got out of a relationship perhaps, more than likely, you will mention something externally. You won't look up and say, “I just feel happy.”

And then if you say to other people, “What will make you happy right now? What will improve your circumstances right now?”

 And, they'll say, “Well, if I had a bit more money, if I was a bit healthier, if I lost a bit of weight, if I gained a bit of weight, if I had a bit better tan.” Nowadays, it’s liposuction, lipo-fillers or either fake eyebrows or a few more likes on Facebook, etc.  

And now it's like, I'm not interested in likes, I want the love. I don't want any of the other things, you know the likes, are no longer interesting. And this is really funny, and I talk about the happiness line. And if you imagine a piece of paper, draw a line right in the middle of the piece of paper and then if I say to you that line is your center line, that's the line when you feel normal. You're not excited, you're not in intimate moments, you're not cuddling anyone, you're not feeding any kind of excitement or enlightenment or spiritual bliss or any of those things. And below that line is everything, and you go to the doctors find out you are ill or cannot pay your debts or you're feeling lonely or you're feeling depressed or anything like that has blurred the line.

And depending on whether how far up or down on the scale above and below the line you go, you know, if you're going on holiday, you're quite high up above the line. If you're in bed and having an intimate moment, you're having sex with somebody, you're quite well up above the line. And then the moment you climax, you're like top of the paper, off the paper, off the scale. But then when you go to the doctor's and you suddenly get diagnosed with something that isn't that good, or you hear