What Do You Know About Treadmills? (Or Stop Trying So Hard To Be Happy)
In this post, I share the philosophical and psychological reasons why the pursuit of happiness is futile and how practicing contentment is more sustainable.
Did you know that your trying to be Happy or happy is making you miserable? Stop it.
Stop trying so hard to be happy. Read on if you want to learn why.
"There are two main reasons why you should stop trying to be happy: one philosophical and the other psychological."
From a philosophical standpoint, happiness is an ideal, if not the ideal. But ideals by their nature are unattainable. We can come really close to them, but we will always fall short. Somewhere, between the ideation of the ideal and the attempt at its synthesis, cosmic errors compound and distort what is in creation. So, if you are engaged in the long-standing tradition of the pursuit of happiness, quit. Though noble, the pursuit is futile.
This brings us to the second reason.
"What do you know about treadmills?"
There is a psychological phenomenon that riddles the human condition; a sickness so severe that it steals the joy in our lives and leaves us wanting. If not treated, it alone can guarantee that you will never be Happy. Hedonic adaptation.
Some refer to it as the hedonic treadmill, a name that captures the spirit of it, but the former explains the concept better.
Hedonic adaptation is the reason why a few weeks after you buy a new phone that you were excited about, you find yourself throwing it on the couch or bed without any care in the world.
Hedonic adaptation is just that: adaptation. It's the psychological phenomenon that establishes your "happiness" as the new baseline in your life, making it seem mundane and unfulfilling with time. It's what makes you always want more or want different. But as the second nomenclature suggests, it's a treadmill. You can walk on it all you want, but you're not going to get anywhere.
"The more you try to be or want to be happy, the less happy you will become."
But the reality of the matter is not at all that grim. I'm not saying that you should stop trying to be happy because you will always be miserable. I'm saying that you should stop trying to be happy because that is the wrong thing to want to be.
Happiness, philosophically and psychologically, is unattainable and unsustainable, but contentment is.
Stop trying to be Happy. Work on being content. What does that entail? Work on knowing what you need, and meet those needs. Work on eliminating barriers and obstacles, work on being grateful for the failures and mistakes, acknowledge your gifts and share them with others, and practice.
Happiness might be something people pursue over a lifetime, but contentment is to be practiced every day.
