Seeking happiness is overrated—do this instead.
You’ve scrolled through good ol’ social media and you’re feeling a bit restless.
Johnny is married. You remember when he was your sweetheart at school; it seems like just yesterday. How has he moved on so quickly and intensely?
Cindy is having a baby. Your other best friends are, you can glean from the hashtag, living their best lives. And others have posted an update to Linkedin showing they got a promotion #blessed.
Oh and from the Instagram stories, you learned, the hard way, that all of your friends apparently took that river trip you have all been planning, but you never got an invite?
Sigh.
You close the apps and stare aimlessly at the spackled white ceiling you’ve stared at every night for the past three years.
You can’t help but wonder, “What did I do wrong?”
There’s a throbbing empty sensation in your chest and it feels like something is lodged deeply in your throat. You want to vomit, but you don’t see your mom’s meatloaf casserole anywhere.
Is this all there is? What’s the meaning of this living stuff? Am I getting left behind? Am I happy?
According to the Harvard Business Review “a modern Russian adage holds that ‘a person who smiles a lot is either a fool or an American.’”
Happiness and the expectations we have to be happy vary culture by culture. You could say that happiness is fleeting. It’s not the meat that will keep us moving forward as humans on a day-to-day basis.
Commitment to happiness, as in the idea that we have to be happy all of the time, is a relatively modern thought actually. Happiness in many cases hinges on genes, situation, and culture. We, as humans, are actually pretty bad at knowing what will make us happy in the long term.
In a way, happiness will always be the amazing things someone else is doing. The unreachable ideal that what we have right in front of us can’t be happiness. Happiness is the green lawn your neighbor has or the big trip your friend just took. Happiness then is just that, an idea.
So what’s the alternative to being happy if happy is an ideal, a fleeting emotion that we aren’t great at understanding?
Flourishing.
Flourishing is thriving. Flourishing is “an effort to achieve self-actualization and fulfillment within the context of a larger community of individuals.” Flourishing is making tiny adjustments within the environment we are in to optimize our well being.
Everyone can choose to flourish right where they are. Flourishing is drinking more water, nourishing our body, meditating, joining a community. Flourishing is not a picture perfect ideal. It is the 1% changes we can make to make our lives better. So when it comes to choosing happiness, happiness is somewhat unattainable. It is out of our control. But choosing to thrive right where you are is realistic. It is achievable and will guarantee to make your life better when striving for what we think will make us happy might just lead to disappointment.
Here are 5 ways you can start flourishing right now:
Practice gratitude. Reflect on all the things and people in your life in which you are grateful. Changing our lives doesn’t neceerssarily take change. It takes looking up from our hustle and seeing the good that is already right in front of us.
Build relationship. With your family and friends. Create meaningful relationships in your life that fuel your sense of self.
Imagine your best self. Sometimes all it takes to reconnect with our purpose and passion is to imagine our best self—the person we want to be in this world. When we know what we stand for, it’s easier to take action and make decisions in which we are aligned.
Do random acts of kindness. When we have a sense of community—that we are a part of a whole—we can thrive. Sometimes this means doing random acts of kindness for others. It’s a way to help yourself and help others at the same time.
Volunteer. Volunteering help us take our focus off of ourselves. When we volunteer our time for a greater purpose, we in turn feel a part of a bigger purpose.
Be yourself. Embrace who you are. Comparison is the killer of all joy. And when we focus on what we are good at (rather than what others have that we don’t) we are able to maximize our strengths.