The First Step to Happiness

Writing is a way of exercising my demons, in a sense. I've heard countless times that everyone needs an outlet for their stress and emotions, and without really understanding what that meant, I found that writing could be mine.

It's in my nature to want to be successful at something. In college, I studied creative writing of poetry, believing that if I were going to dedicate so much time to writing, I needed to become good at it. But the purpose of my writing was never to be used as a means of becoming successful or making money; I wrote to free myself of the negative emotions I couldn't keep inside yet had no one to vent to about.

I've had two people in the last week ask me to explain my religious beliefs and how I came to follow those beliefs. 

As I told my story, I realized that most of my struggle to find meaning in life could have been avoided if my culture had taught me better values.  So many of my problems were solved by discovering seemingly simple methods for viewing self and coping with life's experiences. I wondered if there were still kids or adults out there struggling with the same things I almost didn't overcome. I thought, 'If they heard my story, it would be a lot easier for them to find happiness. This is a story that needs to be shared.' 

However, I don't like to write about my personal life publicly, because I always like to be honest when I write. Frankly, there are a lot of actions and personal qualities of mine which I'm ashamed about, so I'm afraid to share my true opinions with others. But I do believe that fear is almost always unnecessary, as I'll explain in more detail later, so I'm going to try to start sharing my experience (in bits and pieces) for the benefit of others.

Now that it's 2012, the doomsday prophecies are everywhere. The Gnostics believe that horrible catastrophes will occur as a result of the karma of mankind, and only after such disasters will a new human consciousness arise. Many New Age spiritualists believe that a golden age of new thinking, enlightened consciousness, and greater love throughout humanity is already beginning.
I won't claim to know which of these sides is right, if either. I do feel, however, that something spiritual is happening, that change is upon us.
I feel that way after sharing my story this week and really taking a close look at the evolution of my life. 

I've been watching a lot of documentaries on consciousness and stumbled across a psychiatrist named R. D. Laing. According to wikipedia:  "Laing's views on the causes and treatment of serious mental dysfunction, greatly influenced by existential philosophy, ran counter to the psychiatric orthodoxy of the day by taking the expressed feelings of the individual patient or client as valid descriptions of lived experience rather than simply as symptoms of some separate or underlying disorder."
I think that's what made the three years working with my therapist so successful; he accepted that my experience of reality was real for me. Now I can see that mostly everyone's life experience consists of illusions or alternate perceptions, and no one's should be considered necessarily more valid than anyone else's.
In American society especially, we only value a practical, problem-solving way of thinking. Creativity is tolerated as long as it's a way of making money--for example, through movie, book, and art sales. But we don't like any lifestyle not centered on material productivity. 
And so many people suffer because of this way of thinking. I think that most people are not satisfied by material goods alone. I think most people are not happy with their current lives, actually. And when we look for a solution, or even just an explanation for this unfulfilling way of life, our culture offers us the lie that material wealth is all that is to be desired. 

If you are rich (which only occurs as a result of being materially productive), you will be happy. If you are beautiful, you will be happy. If you have the newest versions of iProducts, cars, phones, etc., you will be happy. 

Our culture teaches us this so that we will be consumers, buying things and working for more money and functioning as part of our country's economic machine.
I wonder about the people behind this lie, the ones who grow wealthier every day because of it, the people who already have more money than they could possibly spend in ten lifetimes--I wonder, are they happy? If they are, why do they feel the need to make more money? They could do so much with that money to make the world a better place, but they use it to increase their wealth, to maintain their power... they're just afraid of losing it. How can they be truly happy when their actions indicate their fear of that loss? Clearly money hasn't yet bought them happiness. 

Anyway, why do you need money to buy happiness if you're already happy?

Well, there's one explanation for our predicament: we're leading lives to obtain what we've been falsely taught will make us happy, and even by obtaining that we can't find happiness.
But where's the solution?
So many religions throughout history have led horrible campaigns to control people, and with that historical context in mind, I personally have difficulty trusting a group or religious leader which claims to have the authority to tell me right from wrong. I also find it difficult to accept the New Age movement when much of it seems centered on book sales and expensive spiritual retreats. At least the Gnostics have opened up their texts and teachings to the public for free, which I see as a sign of honesty. At least they're practicing what they preach, which is that no one should be denied a teaching that could enrich their lives solely because they can't pay for it. As much as I do agree with a lot of their teachings, though, there are plenty of aspects that don't feel right to me.
In a sense, I'm saying that there is no easy solution for that lack of meaning in our lives, at least not yet. But I suggest, once you've realized that most of the things you've been wasting your energy trying to attain aren't actually going to eliminate that ache of purposelessness, that you try to find your own purpose. 

Notice, I didn't say "invent;" I said "find." I do believe that there's already a purpose out there for you, and all of your experiences have prepared you for it (read The Alchemist). Besides, inventing one's own purpose can work for a time, but we are constantly changing, and the goals I set for myself at sixteen or nineteen are vastly different from those I have now.

I'm not ready to share the full history behind how I began to discover my religious views just yet.  

I will say a little about my researching process, though. 
My spiritual views incorporate aspects from so many different sources, but that's what makes them my own. I don't believe what I believe because one person or group told me this is what I have to believe. In my extensive search of texts, films, lectures and scriptures from various worldwide religions, philosophers, scientists, and influential intellectuals, I have made the final decision of which facets to accept or reject. I've made those choices based on my personal experiences, feelings, and method of reasoning. And I am being completely sincere when I say that discovering my spiritual beliefs, although I'm still right in the middle of the process, has made my life drastically happier.
I do not want to brag about how happy I am so that other people will be jealous. I admit when I was younger, I wanted to live that materially wealthy life so that people would envy me--I thought that would make me happy. But even when so many parts of my life looked incredible in photos or on paper, the truth behind it was that I was really unhappy and suffering through years of depression.
That's why I have to say that I am happy now, so that other people will know real happiness is possible. I wish I could describe the richness of my quality of life now in comparison to just two years ago. I went from monthly mental breakdowns and a constant feeling of meaninglessness to a life of seeing beauty in everything and experiencing daily moments of feeling fully alive. 

It's not because I moved to South Korea--these changes began over a year before that. My life has improved because my perception of it changed, and when that happened, I changed. 

I changed my priorities. 

I changed the way I treated other people. 

I changed my beliefs about what happiness is.
I used to think happiness was safety and contentment, something that a lot of money seemed likely to provide for me.
Now I feel that happiness is living deeply. Happiness is not worrying or being afraid of pain, but embracing every experience, both good and bad.

As R. D. Laing states, "There is a great deal of pain in life, and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain."

How much of your life do you spend worrying or stressed or trying to postpone painful yet inevitable situations? That fear, anxiety, and procrastination will not change the reality that pain exists in life and cannot be avoided by anyone, no matter how much money they have. Fear only wastes the time you have now, time that could be enjoyed.

There's a lot more involved in going from depression to happiness, but let's start with that.

The first step to happiness:  try to get rid of as much fear in your life as possible.

(There are many forms of fear, so don't forget major ones like stress, worry, and closed-mindedness.)

I understand that's not an easy feat to accomplish. It requires a lot of self-awareness and self-control, which is hopefully something I can discuss in another blog post sometime.

But for now, when you realize you're afraid to do something, try to do it anyway.

I'm not suggesting you jump off a bridge or anything, but if you really examine your fear, if you really look for the cause, you'll find that 95% of your fears are useless. Feeling afraid isn't enjoyable either, so there's no need to keep yourself in that state. 

Let the fear go, and if you can't do that, then at least try not to let the fear control you. 

Don't let fear stop you from doing the right thing.

Don't let it prevent you from living life to the fullest.

And don't let it separate you from other people.

I'm taking my own advice. Although I fear criticism and what other people will think of me, I'm sharing this with the intention of giving hope to the hopeless.

Depression doesn't have to be an eternity. And happiness isn't a myth.

I'm going to prove those things to you over the course of this blog.


“Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes - they have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something that the world will notice.” -Agatha Christie