An observation on happiness.

I have a confession people.

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Sometimes I feel a little bit sad.

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Mainly due to my dissatisfaction with the progress of certain aspects of my life. Things just aren’t moving as quickly as I would like them to and I want things to happen now instead of later.

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All of that to say, that frankly it feels like I’m falling behind.

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I don’t even know what I’m falling behind in or compared to what exactly, but it just feels like I’m playing catch up with some imaginary standard set on me by nobody.

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Then I got to thinking. Who in my life is actually happy? Who on a consistent basis is satisfied and content with how their life generally is?

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To my surprise, I realized I don’t actually know of that many people who are happy like that on a day to day basis.

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Young people, middle aged people, even old people. It seems like everybody is bent out of shape with at least one or a few things in their life.

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My 10 year old nephew might be the happiest person I know.

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And I don’t know if that says more about who I hang out with or just people in general, but I think that’s fascinating.

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It seems like there’s always something that’s holding people back from thinking their lives are complete and satisfactory.

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I was watching a Youtube video and the person in it brought up a really interesting thought experiment.

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He said, if you could have a perfect life, what would it be and what would you want to do everyday?

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I applied it to myself and I decided I would want:

• to live in a place with nice weather
• to have no monetary struggles
• be able to spend time with my friends and family regularly
• to live in a dope ass house
• and be able to do artistic and creative things all day long

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Then it hit me, holy shit, I basically already do those things everyday. Minus the money and the dope ass house.

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I already have about 80% of the ideal life I would want to live, but the extra 20% for some reason just ruins the whole rest of it and poisons my perspective of the life I already life.

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It’s like because things aren’t perfect, I’m hyper-fixating on the things I don’t have and It’s affecting how I see everything else.

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And then I started to think, even if I got everything I wanted right now, I probably wouldn’t be happy still. I’d probably find some other bullshit thing that’s bothering me and this whole cycle would start all over again.

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Life is like a treadmill with a carrot on a stick in front of you. And every milestone or shiny new thing just keeps you running even more.

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You will never be satisfied or “happy” because there is always something else you will want.

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~ Fast forward about a week into the future ~

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I wrote that first piece about a week ago when I was a sad and depressed little boy.

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But this is present me talking now. And in all honesty, I feel pretty freaking good.

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I got some small wins here and there with my freelance business I’m trying to start and it looks like some progress is being made in the areas of my life that I thought were lacking at the time I wrote that part last week.

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So I guess the message of this post is to just hang in there and keep going.

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I know that sounds lame and not as profound, but I think sometimes you just get into funks. Emotions swing left and right, backwards and forwards, but they always come back around.

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But you just have to keep going I guess.

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But after all of that being said, I realized that I already have a pretty dope life, even though I don’t have money and possessions to show for it.

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I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who have the things I want, and would trade everything for the things that I have.

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A little bit of perspective goes a long way.

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So if I can figure out how to be happy before I get all those things, then when I’m rich and successful, life will be perfect. Right?