Happiness - A Thread

I was recently listening to a podcast where @naval was being interviewed by Shayne.
One of the most fascinating parts was were Naval was asked what happiness meant to him. Let me try and explain what I understood.

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Most people think of happiness as a positive thing. Believing that you have to be in a positive state of mind, or a positive mood to be happy. They try to attach happiness to things. Now wait, this isn't about happiness isn't about material possessions.

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Have you ever attached happiness to a person, an achievement, money, or something? Even if that something is a condition that has to be met. A condition could be that you're not being burned in hot water, and being poked with a pointy spike, haha.

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Whatever you attach it to, then that isn't really happiness. Because wherever there is positivity then there is an element of negativity lurking not too far. If you're happy because of something, then the absence of that thing can cause you unhappiness.

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True happiness is intrinsic. That means it exists without external or even internal attachments. It exists because of the void in our mind. Void means not worrying about the past, future, or even what is happening now. Your mind is in a state of nothingness.

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Without harboring anything, the mind also lacks the medium to contain sadness, excitement, pain, or any other emotions that could cause us to lose our inner happiness. That's what true happiness is.

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You may ask, how do I get to this state? It's intrinsic. Stop looking for a reason to be happy. Stop regretting the past. Stop worrying about the future. Try and focus on being absolutely present. Like now that you are reading this thread, can you focus 100% on reading it.

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What are the errors, and the grammatical processes I'm using to communicate to you. How do the words appear on the screen, what are my choice of words, do you notice a pattern in the way I speak? If all you are doing right now is reading this thread and all that concerns it

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... then you are fully in the present. Your mind is not wandering off to some event that happened in the past, or fantasizing about one that you're expecting to happen in the future. Now, let me make an analogy for you.

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You come home and you're like "oh, I'm so happy," and the person you're with asks, "why are you happy?" that alone tells you the majority of people need a reason to be happy. Your answer could be, "I was promoted at work," or it could be "I'm traveling out the country."

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But it really should be "oh nothing, I just am." If your answer is any of the first two, or something similar, then your happiness could easily be destroyed by you getting demoted, or the lock down, haha. That is too fragile to be considered happiness.

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You're not happy, you're just in a state of mind where you are experiencing positive emotions or thoughts. I don't know what you'll call it, find a word for it. When you get to a place in your mind where external things do not affect your happiness,

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where you remain the same regardless of what is happening around you, and whether you lost your job, you lost some money, somebody yelled at you etc. then you're happy. It doesn't mean you become nonchalant, it means you treat some things like a robot would.

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Think about it, being unhappy will not bring your job back, it will not give you back the money you lost, and that person cannot un-yell at you. The best thing to do is what would change the situation for a better outcome, or an outcome you consider self beneficial.

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Work towards financial freedom or ignore that toxic person. Doing these things does not require a happy mind. It just needs to be done. Treat it like a robot would. Once you understand that your state of being happy or not does not affect anything...

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and if it does you're bound to be ineffective because you will continually go through ups and downs which will consequently keep affecting your productivity. You need to be in maximum productive state at least 90% of the time to become one of the greats.

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Like @lifemathmoney explained in one of his blog posts, you need to get in the flow state for maximum productivity. In this state you will find your productivity levels being three times more than if you weren't in the flow state.

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That's another topic for another day though. My point is, basing your happiness on anything at all will prevent you from getting into this state most of the time. Some things in life require robotic calculations and even actions.

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I tried to explain as best as I could, however if you still don't understand what I'm trying to pass across you can check the podcast. It's on YouTube, just search Naval podcast, it's about 1 hour and 50 minutes, because there are other podcasts.

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Naval also said the definition of happiness varies for everyone. That means everybody has what happiness means to them.

Can you tell me in a sentence what happiness means to you? I would love to see your own definition.

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