{"id":131721,"date":"2024-06-07T09:26:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/?p=131721"},"modified":"2024-06-07T13:09:03","modified_gmt":"2024-06-07T17:09:03","slug":"our-mistaken-ideas-about-what-makes-us-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/07\/our-mistaken-ideas-about-what-makes-us-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Mistaken Ideas About What Makes Us Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">By Leo Babauta<\/h4>\n<p>Most of us are operating on mistaken ideas about what gives us happiness \u2014 and these errors are costly.<\/p>\n<p>Think about how you normally spend your days \u2014 and then think about whether that\u2019s making you happy. Now think about the cost to your health and long-term happiness.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s give a few examples, so you can see what I mean:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Social media<\/strong>: If you spend a lot of your time on social media, perhaps for it\u2019s entertainment value or distraction from things stressing you out \u2026 notice if this leads to better or worse happiness and mental health. For many, it leads to worse mental health and less happiness, and has huge opportunity costs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>TV, Youtube or other entertainment<\/strong>: Same as social media \u2014 it usually has diminishing returns on happiness (10 hours of TV makes you less happy than 1 hour of TV), and huge opportunity costs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Work<\/strong>: Our hope is to get a lot of work done, to clear things out, so that we\u2019ll have peace and feel accomplished. This, of course, never happens \u2014 there\u2019s always more work to be done, and our lists and inboxes are never clear (or at least, not for long).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Email \/ messaging<\/strong>: Chances are, you spend a lot of time responding to people. There\u2019s nothing wrong with that \u2014 most of us need to respond to some things. But the drive to constantly respond comes from fear, and no matter how much you respond, it rarely leads to happiness or long-term benefit beyond responding to the essentials.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Shopping<\/strong>: Next time you have the urge to impulse buy something online \u2026 pause and ask yourself what you\u2019re hoping to get out of that purchase, beyond the item itself. Sometimes the purchase is an absolute necessity, but mostly we\u2019re hoping that buying this thing will give us a certain feeling \u2014 without knowing what the feeling is that we\u2019re hoping to get. If you figure it out, ask yourself after the thing arrives if it gave you that \u2026 and then if it did, notice how long that lasts. Buying something rarely leads to a long-term gain in happiness, and often not even a short-term gain.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Eating<\/strong>: Of course, we have to eat. And there\u2019s something pleasurable and wonderful about good food. But often, we\u2019re eating because of a craving or compulsion, because we think it will soothe or satisfy something. It rarely works. And it can come to the great cost of our health, if we\u2019re overdoing it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Drinking alcohol<\/strong>: The same goes for drinking alcohol \u2014 there\u2019s nothing wrong with it, but when it becomes a \u201chave to\u201d rather than an occasional treat, we\u2019re doing it with hopes of soothing something or satisfying something. And that doesn\u2019t really work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OK, if you\u2019re on board with all of that \u2014 then you might be asking, \u201cSo, what does lead to happiness?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are two places to look: outwardly and inwardly.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Outward Happiness Activities<\/h3>\n<p>All of the activities listed above can actually give you happiness \u2014 eating a handful of blueberries, for example, gives me much more happiness than a large fast food meal. Doing some work, or watching a beautiful movie, or reading an inspirational social media post online \u2026 these can all lead to some happiness.<\/p>\n<p>The most important thing is the way that the activity is done \u2014 with full appreciation, and without needing more and more and more. If you can approach anything this way, then the outward activity can lead to happiness.<\/p>\n<p>That said, there are a few outward activities that I notice lead me to more happiness than most activities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Being outdoors and in nature<\/li>\n<li>Moving my body in a delightful way<\/li>\n<li>Eating healthy food<\/li>\n<li>Meditating<\/li>\n<li>Taking care of myself<\/li>\n<li>Connecting with others in an authentic way<\/li>\n<li>Expressing myself through creating<\/li>\n<li>Doing an act of service for others<\/li>\n<li>Smiling, laughing, dancing, playing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This isn\u2019t a complete list, but hopefully you can see that these are happiness-related activities. Some activites can lead to greater happiness \u2014 if we fully allow them to. If we do them like we do most things, rushing through them without much appreciation, then they won\u2019t have a big effect.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Inward Happiness Activities<\/h3>\n<p>In the list above, of outward happiness activities, you might notice something \u2014 many of them are related to some inward experience. And that\u2019s the most important thing \u2014 the real happiness comes from what\u2019s happening inwardly.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some inward activities you\u2019ll notice from the list above:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Being delighted by movement, music, connecting with others<\/li>\n<li>Caring for yourself or others<\/li>\n<li>Having fun, playing, smiling<\/li>\n<li>Being fully in the present moment<\/li>\n<li>Being grateful, being appreciative<\/li>\n<li>Loving<\/li>\n<li>Feeling connected to others, yourself, or the world around you<\/li>\n<li>Expressing your full self<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Again, this isn\u2019t a complete list. The idea is to show you the inward activities that are happening with any outward activity, that lead to greater happiness.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of other inward activities that don\u2019t often lead to greater happiness: judgment, complaining, needing more and more, hating, seeing the faults, hiding yourself or shutting yourself off from the world. Not that these are bad things \u2014 they\u2019re human, and we all do them, and they\u2019re a part of the beautiful experience of living. But you might notice that when you\u2019re doing them, they don\u2019t fulfill you as much as other inward activities.<\/p>\n<p>From that, you might consciously practice the inward activities that lead to greater fulfilment, meaning, love. How would you like to practice?<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\/makes-happy\/\">Our Mistaken Ideas About What Makes Us Happy<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/zenhabits.net\">zen habits<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Leo Babauta Most of us are operating on mistaken ideas about what gives us happiness \u2014 and these errors [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131722,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131721\/revisions\/131722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yorbestlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}