By instinct, the human heart would rather move to grab hold of something than sit still. The more you think about happiness, the less happy you become. An obsession, a compulsion — “I want to be happy” — takes root.
Happiness only exists when its opposite exists alongside it.
The word happy can’t stand without the word unhappy beside it. We feel unhappy by comparing ourselves to others, by envying and coveting, and it’s on the foundation of that lack that the obsession and compulsion to be happy are born.
How do you rid yourself of the obsession and compulsion to be happy?
=> Give life the courtesy of ‘time’ to unfold.
Just let life flow the way it flows. Judge less; wait without passing judgment while the gears of life keep turning.
=> Don’t judge — ‘observe.’
Simply perceive things as they are, without comparing. Of everything I’ve achieved so far, how much came from clawing and straining, and how much from a lucky alignment of fleeting moments? Let’s become the kind of weirdo who can savor the thrilling [uncertainty] that ‘life’ offers. Rather than being a [driven doer], become an [insightful observer].
If I believe I’m the most important being in the universe, then everything has to revolve around me and I have to be the protagonist of every event. But if I think of myself as just one ant among many, then I can simply take things as they are —
‘Detachment’
This is what all the books I love say in common. The anguish, greed, obsession, envy, and possessiveness of life all come from the thought that we’re ‘not happy.’ And feeling unhappy comes from looking at someone else who seems happy. So the most important thing is to see, seek, and feel the ‘standard for happiness’ within my own life (the one thing I can actually control) — and to do that, I have to pour far more of my time into the inside than the outside. In other words: don’t judge external things, observe them; take life as it comes, watching it flow over the span of ‘time’ + look for what’s happy within the life I’m actually living.
=> To an outside observer, I think this is what gets described as being ‘detached’ — someone who looks full on the inside and at ease on the outside.
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