The Reliable Path to Happiness

Our modern culture has become a fan of quick solutions.

At first, faxing got us into the realization that mail was slow. The immediate increase in pace set the world on its ear. Before, when mail took three days and you were allowed a few days to respond, there was a lot of latitude.

Then email reached people easier than phones. Text messaging makes little electronic devices beep in your pocket. If you don’t respond to an email solicitation for services in a few minutes you might lose out to a competitor.

The internet made solutions quicker and opened everyone to global competition. Being faster and better creates a lot of pressure.

Instead of making life easier and our days shorter, the quick response formula has made days longer and more intense. Quicker reaction times create more stress. Everyone expects instant action. Who has time to eat? Then you have to unload the stress at the end of the day so you can be ready the next day.

If you are really good, you can make a lot of money. So we have turned to fast food, Red Bull, 5 hour energy, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, shopping, and other quick fixes to keep us in motion and get our nervous systems back on track.

It is clear this life style is killing us and requiring more anti depression and anxiety medicine. The percentage of children with ADD is staggering. Medicaid is breaking the federal budget. Health insurance is too expensive for 40% of the nation.

We have confused the road to survival, security, and prosperity with happiness. They are not the same. They are quite different paths. We are killing ourselves to get more security thinking we can buy happiness.

What we have to realize is that we are born happy. We are happy in our adolescence with simple things such as play, love, and friends. If left to our own accord, we would keep playing if we didn’t have to go to school. The structure starts shaping us into productive adults with goals foreign to our true nature.

The brain produces our happiness chemicals when it is engaged in activities we enjoy and in which we have competence. Many people are blessed by doing something they love and getting paid for it. Dopamine and serotonin are by products of flow and being in the zone. These two practices are even labeled by psychologists as the top of the emotional intelligence scale.

In these states, we close out distractions. We have little regard for judgment or reward. We often find the activities addicting. Mountaineers say that the fear of death is secondary to the need to find what they are made of and test themselves against the elements.

As a surfer when I see big waves, I want to see someone catch it and tame it. That’s my goal when I am in the water. Passion is the real emotion of living. Boredom is death. Engaging in activities that have real meaning to us creates the brain chemicals of happiness.

A life in flow is a pursuit of this passion wherein the time between engagements is often filled with preparation or rest. I love to surf and I love to write, read, and cook. Surfing is my main passion and the other activities give me pleasure while I am resting.

Engaging in destructive habits are inimical to my life purpose. Stress reduces my flow. I therefore try to eliminate distractions and live responsibly so that stress is minimized. I do not watch TV, do not have a smart phone, do not thrive on social media, do not read the news before my creative work is done, rarely get inebriated, nor eat bad food more than 15% of the time.

Quick fixes to happiness are illusions. Separating our need to survive from our need to express ourselves and discover our limits leads to a path of self discovery and happiness.