"The secret to happiness is to stop searching for it"?

Question

Discuss.

Answer 1

Or that by lowering ones expectations diminishes ones disappointments!

Answer 2

Some people say happiness cannot be 'attained'. If shear and utter happiness were to be attained, the human condition simply wants more. More is never enough. If we are proven to have more than any one else, it is still not enough, we can never be truly happy. However, it all depends on how you measure happiness. I believe you simply have to make a choice. The choice to be happy simply with what you have, where you are, and who you are with. Dirt poor people dying of cancer can be more 'happy' than the most healthy lavish billionaires.
The search can end today, right now, all the answers can be revealed.
You must change your attitude and your perspective.
If you change that, you change the world.
And you'll find that happiness is all there is.
The rest, you make up.

Answer 3

Well, true happiness is found only from within; not by the aquisition of material goods or money.

Using my own life's journey as an example, I have never hesitated to follow my dreams along the open road and enjoy living and working in several different areas.

This is NOT to say that I was not "happy" where I was.

I was "happy" wherever I went, and experienced different forms of "happiness."

That does not mean, however, that a person should just, logically, renounce all material things and live in a monastary. He may do so if that is his heart's desire, and I have no problem with it. It is not for me, however.

I have never felt that I needed to "search" for happiness, but as I said, that did not contradict my love of taking "the road less traveled."

Answer 4

Happiness is nothing but a condition of mind and mind never settles for one thing. So if you keep going on searching for happiness the search will never end and your entire life will be wasted in wondering after something which is so illusive. But if you stop the search and look within your search will be over. You will find contentment and inner peace that is the mother of all the happiness. In short please is something that you find outside and happiness is something that is inside you. Once you realize that your journey end and happiness begins.

Answer 5

How true! When you search for something, most times you overlook related things. Like, searching for your shoes, you forget first to put on your socks! I know this isn't quite the same thing, but, in a way, it relates better than anything else I could come up with. When you search for happiness, you concentrate so narrowly on just that...happiness...that the small moments, small gestures that amount to happiness as a whole are lost to you. You pass them by in quest for the bigger object. Happiness isn't a thing, it isn't touchable, smellable...it isn't something you can hold onto, hoard or save up...happiness is in the accumulation of small things...a touch by a loved one, a smile form a friend, a gift of praise, waking to see the sun shining...being, simply being.

Answer 6

Kind of, yeah. In the sense that the source of dissatisfaction is the desire for something more, and a lot of the time we can just choose to be satisfied with what's in front of us, stop looking elsewhere and enjoy the life we have.

It could sound a tad smug to someone who lives, say, in abject poverty, or who has their family murdered, etc. In some ways, the secret to our "happiness" with our lives today could also be the fact that someone before us insisted on being dissatisfied with their status quo. But that's a slightly different definition of happy.

Answer 7

This certainly is true, and since you have asked for discussion, I elaborate on this, otherwise I would not. The fact is that all search modes narrow down our perception to focus only upon things that are already in our mind. And since we are unhappy, searching for happiness, it is more likely that the things we are looking through are the things that are unable to give us what we want, or with our current perspective on life, and things of life in our view, we are unable to see what we desperately need to see – brightness, hope and happiness in all things. The consequence, therefore, is that we either suffer from tunnel vision, or we keep going round and round until exhaustion sets in. On the other hand, however, if we just take a break from the job at hand and let our nature prevail a little, we might find many reason to be happy within the scope of our own being. When we search we have to define define what we are loking for otherwise we would not know, and happiness is perhaps the most difficult things to define once and for all; my sources of happiness, for example, keep changing, and so do everyone else's.

Happiness is, in fact, a very illusive concept; this is an illusion of most subtle nature, that keep evading us like a phantom. All we know is that we are not happy, but how to be happy, and most importantly how to stay happy, none of us knows for sure; perhaps the most frightening thing is getting terribly unhappy after a period of exultation and delightfulness. Then what do we do? How do we realise this most illusive of all concepts into a life of reality? For this we all have to have our own ways. And if there is any valid search regarding happiness that this is the one – search for way to make happiness a reality. Rest assured that happiness is within, we do not have to go far and away to find it. It is only that we at times terrible fail to realise it; we just do not know how to turn our dreams into reality; how to have our prayers answered; and how to fulfil our ambitions.

And then we succeed, as we all do at times, for if we would not, we would never know at all what happiness is. Once found, we like to know if our happiness is real, for this we like to share our happiness with as many people as we can find, people we love and care. This way happiness not only increases but it also tend to last a great deal longer – may be we should search for people who we could share our happiness with when found alongside the ways to get real in life. Happiness? I believe is within – waiting; and we are bound to lose it when we look for it somewhere else. This is why I agree with you positively.

Answer 8

You got It!!! Once you stop searching....all you gotta do is "be happy". Happiness is a decision...it is not the result of Having something, or doing something.

Here's the paradigm most follow to find Happiness:

Do (something to be happy) then you'll have something (to be happy) and finally you'll BE happy.

This is the wrong way to approach Happiness....do it in reverse!

First, decide that you are Happy, then you'll be doing things that continue the momentum of happiness and finally you'll receive the benefits to Having Happiness.

repeat the cycle.

cheers everyone!

Answer 9

No don't think so ...if we stop searching we just give up and become veg....happiness is what you make it .... me happy with self ..... but that doesn't mean I give up looking for more things to enjoy or to be happy to experience ...me I'm still in the pursuit of more happiness if that's giving or receiving so be it ...happy searching

Answer 10

I agree
Life is not about finding happiness, sadness, contentment, or power. Life is about the journey. Plain and simple yet extremely complicated at the same time. Interestingly enough its so easy to forget this because we are always thinking that God meant for us to be happy on Earth--WHO SAID THAT????
When was there a passage in the bible ( speaking for my religion) that said you should live for what makes you happy and do what is best for you. No where.
Its sad but life is about life. Its about making decision between what is easy and what is right and its about us looking to eachother to find comfort in our common struggle. We are all struggling to get through life in one way shape or form, if only we could all see that instead of being so angry and jealous or quick to idolize someone else's life.

WE ARE ALL PEOPLE. MAYBE IN THE DARK OF LIFE INSTEAD OF SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS WE SHOULD SEARCH FOR EACHOTHER AND NOT ALLOW THE CONTINUAL FEAR PLUNGED INTO OUR PYSCHES TO CONTROL US.

GOD BLESS

Answer 11

you get what you need, and not always what you want.
Finding happiness, is really hard considering that we as human beings, have a natural desire to always pursuing for the next best thing, and since happiness rests in a condition of our mind, we have a conflict there.

But life is in the journey my friend, so next time, somewhere along the road of life, remember in finding happiness inside yourself and around the simplest things in life, knowing that at then end, it doesn´t matter whether you won or not, but at least you try..