We’ve heard the phrase that “once you’re happy with what you have, you have everything you need.”

Nice saying. But all that is for me is a nice poster to look at in a coffee shop. Hearing that phrase used to go in my head, stir some nice feelings, and left the instant I saw food posts on Instagram that I craved.

But there is truth to the quote. The constant pursuit of more will never be able to satisfy anyone for long. After all, if we aren’t happy with what we got, why would we be happy when we get more? We understand this. We recognize this. Yet, for some reason it seems hard to apply to our daily lives.

The Rationalizing Mind

The problem with hearing inspirational quotes like that is we often fall into the trap of intellectualization. That is, we find what we feel to be a truth only through logical deduction. It feels intuitive. But then we do nothing with it other than feel good about reasoning to the same idea.

There’s a good story of this I was taught during my meditation retreat. Gautama the Buddha believed the root source of unhappiness was attachment to things. With attachment we create a qualification to what reality we want. This means that we will suffer from craving a positive experience and being averse to negative experience. If we learn to let go of our attachments, we can get rid of our suffering.

Make sense? So all the students will look at the teacher and think “Oh yes. This is correct. I must let go of my attachments to truly be happy. They are only causing me misery.” And they feel a sense of peace and progression after this realization. That now they can let go of their attachments and truly be happy.

And suddenly one individual walks out and says “Huh? Where are my shoes? Hey, you over there. You took my shoes!”

Our conscious mind loves to make us think we understand something. And sometimes it is certainly enough to incite action. But many motivational material simply stops at the mind. We understand something to be true, yet act opposite to that truth in the moment. To borrow a metaphor again from my meditation course, it is like studying how water extinguishes fires, and then when a fire actually emerges we throw gasoline all over it. We even know our mistakes and bad behaviors, yet we keep repeating them. 

If we want to find latent happiness and drive, we won’t obtain it from a motivational quote. That only lasts for a few days and is a fleeting experience. 

That’s not to say inspiration is bad though. It’s actually a very useful tool. The confusion is believing the task is done there. That we’ve found what we needed in the quote. The quote is supposed to show there is something more for us to experience. It is intended to incite action which can then truly change someone.

 If it simply makes us feel good for agreeing with it, we’ve failed to make a meaningful change in our lives.

An Experiential Journey

I do think it is possible to create latent happiness and peace in our lives. Or at least I’ve felt like progressed towards that for the first time through my meditation course.

But in order to build a foundation truly based on joy, we cannot attempt to reason with it. We keep feeling like we accomplish this with each inspirational quote, and yet it doesn’t last. Instead we need to focus on action.  We have to act to experience the natural joy around us. By building this practice, we can experience joy naturally within us.

There are two main methods that I’ve found useful:

1. Gratitude: Now I know you’ve been hearing this one a lot, but let me try to offer something new. I attempted to start the CEO method of logging in a gratitude journal every morning in bed expecting some huge shift in life perspective. But every time I did it, I felt like I was asking “How can I get some on things on paper?” While I’m sure gratitude journals can be effective for others, I quickly realized I wasn’t actually building any gratitude from it. Instead what I’ve been practicing now is just being grateful for things as I experience them, and perhaps reflecting in my mind slightly as to why I’m grateful for it. This means as I’m eating my food, I’m thinking about how great it is to have it. As I’m talking to someone, I’m realizing how great it is for them to be there as a human being. And when I wake up, I soak in how glad I am to wake up. Practicing this, you begin to understand that there is always something to be grateful at each moment, if not for just being alive. And over time, you’ll naturally feel that state of gratitude without even thinking. It’s just a part of the moment.
2. Observant: This is a harder one to practice but one that I’ve been exploring the past few months. Instead of pondering about what I’m glad for each moment, I’ll just observe the moment. No thinking involved. Whatever happens, good or bad, you can simply step out and observe as a third party member. I first started doing this with external events after reading the Untethered Soul. But after my meditation retreat, I’ve realized you have to also focus your attention on yourself. That is, be observant of your emotional state and sensations. Your anger, sadness or happiness. Feel them but don’t get consumed by them. What you do is build your mind to not let anything control you. Instead, you are detached from cravings and aversions. This to me is an even deeper level of latent joy that can be tapped into. You are able to break down notions of good or bad, something I talked about in an earlier post here, and simply interact with reality as it is.

Trying to build a deep sense of fulfillment and happiness is a journey. It can’t be done with a logical proof from a quote. It requires action on our parts to experience life in a certain way. We need to take the time to feel grateful for each moment and learn to be observant of what’s going on without judgement. Doing this long enough, we don’t have to learn that we have everything we need. We just feel it inside of us.