What is Happiness?
December 12, 2024
Take a ride from the train station called life.
People tend to believe that happiness is the absence of difficulties, that they will be happy when they have more money, finally have a family, weigh less, or look better. This is unrealistic and will lead to an unhappy life.
Imagine your life is a train station with cars coming and going.
One track has all the good experiences of your life and the other all the bad. You can choose which way you wish to look.
You can stare down the bad track and obsess over everything that has gone wrong.
You can stare down the good track and live a life of denial, desperately pretending that everything is fine.
Or you can look out across both tracks and see them for what they are: ever-changing circumstances in this thing called life.
So when a good train car pulls up, you climb on and enjoy it for all it’s worth.
You treasure the ride like you would on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Like any trip, you realize that this train ride will end, and when it does, you move on, not bitterly but with joy and appreciation for the ride.
And when a bad train car pulls up, you take the ride until the next station. And that ride may be loud and dirty and smelly and unpleasant, but you know that it is temporary.
You hold your breath, wait it out, and get off as soon as you can. And then you wait for another good train ride because you know one is coming along any minute.
And then, instead of living your life waiting for there to be no problems, no more bad train rides, you learn instead how to live in a world where you can navigate both the good and the bad.
You persevere through the bad knowing that a better ride is right around the corner.
And when that good ride comes, you treasure it all the more. You appreciate every moment of the good.
Over time, you learn to see more and more good around you. You live a life of beauty, gratitude and joy.
