Our motivation in life is to always feel good. Everything we want and everything we do is for the expectation that we will feel better for having it or by doing it. Therefore, it’s the result, or the good feeling emotions we will feel that motivates us.
Before we purchase that new dress, we are already imagining how we will feel when we are wearing it. And before we can achieve our goal of running a marathon, we are using the ‘good feelings’ we know we will experience when the goal is achieved to keep us encouraged throughout the strenuous hours of training.
My question to us all is this: Why wait?
Nothing is more important than the way we feel!
Do we really need to wait until we have the items we desire or have achieved our goals to receive the reward of feeling great?
The simple answer is NO! WE DO NOT NEED TO WAIT FOR THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF OUR DESIRES AND GOALS TO FEEL BETTER. WE CAN ACTUALLY BE HAPPY ANY TIME WE CHOOSE TO!
Much of our time is spent doing stuff so that we can be happy later!
The main reason why we are not feeling happy all the time is that we have been conditioned to believe that it is things outside of us that are the reason for our happiness, or lack of it. We think that only when we have the stuff we want and have achieved our goals, then we have sufficient reason to, and are entitled to, feel happy.
So, we spend much of our time doing actions (being active in the outer world– the world beyond our skin) in the hope that will we close the gap between our current reality and our desired reality. And often this time is spent doing stuff that we are not enjoying.
We spend years getting a good education in the hopes of getting a great job; Some of us go to work to earn money in the belief that money makes us happy; We take out a mortgage to buy a house so we can feel secure and successful; Shopping for new clothes, shoes, and bags makes us feel better, briefly, when we use them; We spend hours struggling in gyms to lose unsightly weight so we can feel better after the weight has gone.
It’s the results we WILL achieve, the elevated feelings, rather than the daily feelings we have by doing the majority of the stuff we do that keeps us going. Not many of us are happy to be sitting in an office with artificial lighting, air-conditioning, and lots of noise day in and day out, but we are willing to do it for the perceived future benefits.
It is the paycheck that we desire, not the money itself, but because of the things we can do once we have it. Our paycheck allows us to buy the things we want, take the family holiday, or spend time on our goals. And it is these things that give us the good feelings we are desiring, not the working for the money, or the actual money.
It’s our expectations versus our reality that determines how we feel.
Our conditioning/programming makes us believe that: if life is happening the way we want it to happen (we can buy some of the stuff we want, and complete some of our goals) then it is ok for us to be happy. And if we just continue to apply ourselves to the process of wanting, then doing, then buying, our happiness is assured.
If life is not working out for us as we wish it to, then we are justified in feeling unhappy. Unfortunately, many people will tell us that the solution to our unhappiness is just to work harder, put in more hours, or get a better job. This solution relies on the hope of making more money with which: we can buy more stuff, keep up with the Jones’s, keep our partner and kids happy……. etc.
However, doing more action-orientated stuff in the outer world (that we often don’t enjoy) is not a real or lasting solution to our unhappiness. It just means that we are spending more time ‘not being happy now.’ We are expending more of our energy and time for a perceived future reward, that is not guaranteed.
Coupled with this, our tendency to continue to want stuff never ends! Our consumerism societies are set up to keep us continually wanting ‘the next,’ ‘the latest,’ and ‘the greatest ever’ items. And then tomorrow, who knows, ‘blue may be the next black’ (AGAIN) in the world of fashion! We will always be wanting something more than we currently have.
While there is nothing wrong with wanting more, bigger, and brighter things, there is a problem if our happiness is reliant on us getting things that we currently don’t have.
If we continue to act and react to events, circumstances, and people in the outer world according to our consensus programming, we will never be in control of our lives, and therefore, NEVER IN CONTROL OF OUR HAPPINESS OR LEVEL OF SATISFACTION WITH LIFE.
We cannot control most of our external environment. Therefore, we cannot expect it to be a stable supplier of our happiness.
It’s important to understand that while it’s nice to find things in the physical environment that enhance our good feelings, we cannot rely on them to genuinely make us feel good at all times- they only bring temporary shifts in our thoughts and feelings.
Our family and friends will sometimes say and do things that hurt us; we may lose our well-paying job due to unforeseen circumstances like the current virus; a storm may come and uproot our favorite tree; our best friend may move far away, or our beloved family pet may break a leg.
The point is that stuff is always happening in the outer world that is beyond our control. And while so much of it is good, much of it is not going to enhance our desire to have ‘good feeling’ thoughts which lead us to experience good feeling emotions.
There are some things we can exert some control over to try and tip the balance in our favor to remain feeling good, but this usually only results in short-term satisfaction. It becomes a constant battle to try and control external circumstances because there are many different energies involved. And if other people are involved, forget it, as we are not able to completely control (nor do we have the right to control) another’s behavior.
So, trying to control external circumstances to enable us to feel happiness is like walking a path that is always filled with obstacles. We will just be going from one hurdle to the next, and then the next. We will always be vulnerable to, and at the mercy of stuff that is happening outside of us. This is tiring, frustrating, and just a constant battle….
AND DURING THE BATTLING PROCESS, WE ARE NOT FEELING THE HAPPY EMOTIONS WE ARE DESIRING.
This is a very common life experience, and I’m sure we all know people who are tired from trying to control external events, people, and circumstances so that they can feel better. They seem to be trying to swim upstream, viewing life as a constant struggle, rather than taking an easier path and going with the natural flow of things.
They, and we, will benefit greatly by learning a different way to ‘manage’ our feelings so that the way we feel, and therefore our happiness, is not dependent on, or at the mercy of external events.
Life is not meant to be an easy ride. It’s the contrast that prompts us to grow ourselves.
Our lives can only begin to get better when we understand that neither the good feelings we experience when ‘good’ things happen nor the bad feelings we have when we observe or experience ‘bad’ things, is the actual reason why we feel good or bad.
The way we feel is only ever about our alignment or misalignment within ourselves. And once we understand this, we have the key to our empowerment and freedom.
It’s important to understand that life is never always going to be a soft, fluffy, and easy experience. And, honestly, why would we want it to be? The point of being alive is to experience what life ‘IS.’ And life is not just the good bits or the bits we want to pick and choose for ourselves.
Life is an experience that encompasses a huge variety of contrasting stuff, the good and the bad, the ups and downs, and the expected and unexpected….. and the reality is that much of it, we have very little, or essentially no control over. We’re just kidding ourselves if we think we can control all the external stuff happening in the environment around us! AND IT WOULD NOT BE TO OUR ADVANTAGE EVEN IF WE COULD!
To find out why read my post here: Would it really be a good thing if we received all that we dreamed of?
We need contrasting experiences in our lives to give rise to more desires. Our desires, our wants, and our dreams keep us striving for more, bigger, and better things….. and this is what grows us as individuals and as a species. We evolve because of the process of having the wanted and unwanted, the expected and the unexpected, in our lives.
After all, how would we know what we wanted if we didn’t realize that others already have it and we don’t have it yet? How could we ever dream of world peace if we never saw the horrors of war? How could we wish for an end to poverty if we never saw a hungry person?
We make the world a better place because we are exposed to and ‘experience what life is’ in all its rawness. Our wants and desires keep us pushing the boundaries of what is currently possible to constantly create new products, ideas, entertainment, etc….. all with the goals of improving our lives and making us happier…… And this is enough to be happy about!
It’s the journey towards ‘the having’ or ‘the achieving’ that we need to be enthusiastic about so that we can enjoy the anticipation of the result every step along the way.
So why are we are waiting for the result before allowing ourselves to experience the desired outcome- the happiness?
Contrary to popular belief, we have much more control over the way we feel at any given moment, independent of what is happening in the outer world than we give ourselves credit for. This is because The way we feel is only ever about what we are thinking at any given moment.
So to feel better, we just need to change the predominant thoughts that are going through our minds. This requires that we become aware of our thoughts and actions rather than just thinking and reacting unconsciously to events based on our automatic subconscious beliefs.
As an unconscious reactor (someone living life in auto-pilot mode) we are going to continue to receive more of the same stuff that already makes up the content of our current lives. We will continue to have similar conversations and do similar things as we currently are and therefore end up feeling pretty much the same as you currently do.
In contrast to this, we are born with the potential to be the creators of amazing lives!
However, this knowledge has been beaten out of us from the moment of our birth by a system that programs us to accept mediocrity as the norm. But we do not need to conform to this limited experience. We can reprogram ourselves for so much more, and live extraordinary lives!
All that is required is that we become conscious participants in our own life experiences! Being conscious allows us to really experience life. We get to envision new ideas, set new and bigger goals for ourselves, and then embark on exciting journeys to create what we envision, and then we can experience the joy of witnessing our dreams materialize.
Therefore, the key to achieving great lives lies in our willingness to become aware of, and then consciously choose our thoughts so that they align with how we will feel when we have everything we want and have achieved all our goals!
The Law of Attraction says that whatever we are thinking about IS PLANNING our future. There is no exception to this law. When we are worried, fearful, disappointed, sad, and depressed, we are setting ourselves up for more of the same in our future.
When we can turn our incredibly powerful minds towards a better, brighter, and bigger future life for ourselves, then this is what we are attracting into our experience. This is happening for all of us all of the time because the Universal Mind is ENERGY, and this energy is never punishing or rewarding us but is responding to our vibrational emissions, or our EMOTIONS.
This means that the more joyful we are, or the higher the vibrations we are emitting, the greater the well-being that we will receive into our experience.
What future are you planning for yourself?
To begin creating better lives, we need to stop reacting to stuff in the outer world, and begin using the enormous creative potential of our conscious minds and START LIVING OUR LIVES ‘AS IF’ THEY ARE ALREADY THE WAY WE WANT THEM TO BE.
It is only through properly utilizing our internal world of thoughts and feelings (through conscious participation) that we can direct our thoughts to create the feeling that is necessary to achieve strong emotions within us. These powerful emotions send the desired signals into the Universal Mind, the mind of GOD, and because of The Law of Attraction, we will receive the corresponding circumstances, events, and people into our lives to match our wants, goals, and desires.
This is why I say: THERE IS NOTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAT THE WAY WE FEEL!
If we feel good now, we are planning for our future to be good. If we feel unworthy, sad, disappointed, angry, or fearful, then we can expect our future experience to be filled will similar feelings.
So, do whatever it takes to generate good feeling thoughts now…. Because your future happiness is dependent on it. Do it again, now, and now and now!
Shared with love and respect for all souls who are enjoying the experience of life!
Andrew
Thank you for another inspiring text that reminds us of the right path to take in order to make our lives better.
It takes so little to be happy but unfortunately, we do the exact opposite. Our mood depends even on the weather or the words of an ordinary stranger. In recent years, I have been waging a serious struggle with myself in the sense that I do not allow external events to affect my perception of happiness. In essence, when you start working on yourself, you realize how easy the process really is.
When I reduced my needs and focused only on my inner world everything started to be better. I found there is a lot of things that needed to change and started working on myself. I feel much better now even though that is still not on the level I want to reach. However, I am much happier with life since I do not pay attention to external things. I still want to improve, so your articles help me a lot. I read them regularly and plan to get involved in the courses you suggest.
Stay on that path and all the best!
Danijela
Many thanks for your kind words, Danijela.
It’s exciting when we realize the progress we have made while on the journey of self-development. Knowing how far we have come is always a great inspiration to keep moving forward….. because the only things that don’t move are dead things!
However, as I always try and suggest, it is important to be happy now and not put it off until we have ‘achieved’ the goals we have set for ourselves. After all, the fun is in the journey. And when we reach the destination, we, being human, will always set our sights on something more, bigger, brighter, etc. In other words, our journeys never end! So, as the saying goes, “seize the day!”
I wish you all the best, my friend,
Andrew
Yes, Andrew, we are all truly the designers of our happiness. You have written again a great article that gives us enough to think about.
Decades ago, I was pretty depressed due to having overworked and created burnout syndrome. I couldn’t say “No” in my work as a nurse and ended up working too much. This happened twice in my life. I had to learn to set my boundaries, getting in touch with my inner being, reenergize, and recover my health. I did, and it worked out great, helping me to get to know my limits.
As a nurse, I have met many older people who have worked their whole lives, thinking life is for later, imagining a beautiful future, enjoying their pension, and their lives together. But then illness hit the partner or themselves stopping their dreams. Some have experienced the death of a partner, leaving them behind, depressed and sad.
Life is now, at every moment, here in the present, not in the future. Life is full of colors, beautiful colors. We can’t control the outer world if other people are included, but we can program our world by being happy.
While I am happy, I am blessed with positive happenings like a magnet drawing the blessings into my outer world. The law of attraction works in both directions, and I would love that people would notice it and change their feelings instead of being a victim of their emotions.
My pastor always said, even you can’t see the blessings yet, but knowing God’s word is true, and He has blessed us already, we pray His word into our life till it begins to manifest, regardless of how we feel. By faith, we receive His blessings and be thankful that we have already received the blessings. It is amazing! Thank you, Andrew, for this great article!:)
Hi Sylvia.
Setting boundaries is so important. It means that we are in control of our own lives rather than letting others control us, and therefore the way we are feeling is a conscious choice that we can all make for ourselves.
It’s sad to think that people have been programmed to work hard for so much of their lives in the expectation that they will be rewarded later in life. But, as you mentioned, we cannot predict the future, and we don’t know how long we will live, or how healthy we or our partners, children, friends, etc. will be. So the only sane option is to make the most out of each day as it comes:-)
I like what your pastor said. Pray into our life until it manifests, regardless of how we feel. Many thanks for sharing, and stay happy 🙂
Andrew
Hey Andrew,
I believe this is how the vast majority of us go about our everyday lives – we look externally for happiness, typically to achieve or own/receive something that we believe will create this happiness.
You’ve nailed it for me with your line, “Much of our time is spent doing stuff so we can be happy later.”
We tend to forget about the here-and-now.
And I believe this is simply because we allow our thoughts and feelings to control us.
As I’ve said to you before, we can’t control other people or external circumstances, but we can control ourselves.
Right Andrew, I’m going to teach you something now, rather than the other way around, LOL (probably not, Hahaha).
This is something that I came across recently, but I have always known, although I never really fully understood or dealt with it properly before.
Okay, so we are both aware that the majority of the time our minds chatter away, usually negatively, and this is what in most cases can impact on our happiness.
We allow this internal chatter to control not only our thought processes, but also how we feel.
I have now named my “internal chatter” – he is known as Parda (we used to have a neighbour when I was a child, lovely man, but he could never quite get my name right, LOL).
I now view me, Partha, as myself, but “Parda” as a completely different person or entity.
Every time I can feel that wave of negativity coming over me, I typically say to myself, “There goes Parda again, talking rubbish, and all woe is me.”
I do the same thing with every single situation when I now realise that it’s “Parda” talking and not ME, i.e. lack of productivity, wanting to eat a big slice of cake, deciding that I can put off something until tomorrow, etc.
Just using this simple tactic has really helped me focus on the fact that there is a lot of negativity going on inside my head, multiple times a day.
However, every time I mention “Parda” it makes me giggle, stops me worrying or doing something that I don’t really want to do, and I actually feel quite content afterward.
What do you think Andrew?
Do you think I’m onto something here? LOL
Would love to hear your thoughts as always.
Partha
Wow! Great idea….
As usual, I learn something from you. Cheers mate.
But I have to ask the question, Is it really Parda asking for that big piece of cake??????
I have to ask, because if it was me and ‘Andy,’ I’m sure we could both come up with equally valid reasons why each of us should scoff it down, LOL. I’m just messing with you here, just for fun 🙂
I think you’ve come across a really good method to help disassociate ‘who you want to become’ from the programming that we no longer want in our lives, the stuff that makes us doubt ourselves and sabotages our attempt to achieve our goals.
By laughing at Parda whenever he voices his negative opinion you are effectively stripping the negativity of all its (illusion of) power. Awesome!
I’m going to borrow this idea from you and see if I can make it a habit in my life. From now on, every time I’m aware of a negative thought, I will name it (yet to decide on a name) and laugh at it, because the reality is that negative thoughts no longer have a place in my life. I have enough awareness to know what I want, and am consciously aware for way more than the average of 5% of each, so I can imagine that by playing your game with my negative voice, I will be able to negate much of it’s remaining influence over me.
It’s been a great day for me, a day of breakthroughs and realizations….. Life just keeps getting better, and you know what they say: The better it gets, the better it gets! This is truly what life is all about!
Many, many, many thanks, my friend.
Stay awesome 🙂
With much respect and appreciation,
Andrew
Oh Andrew,
You’ve made my day… I taught YOU something, LOL.
What astounds me with this method, although this is something I know you’ve written about before, is how often we have negative thoughts throughout the day.
Something like nearly 90% of what our “inner self” says is negative and just raking up the same thought patterns over-and-over again.
Admittedly, I don’t catch every single one, but I still hear myself saying, “Parda, stop it, being all negative again, are we?” at least 100 times a day.
And that’s probably only about 10% of the time that I catch myself, hahaha.
However, I have noticed it really has started to make a difference in my life.
I’ve only been going with this method in 2021, but 2 weeks in and there’s a marked difference in me.
Cheers
Partha
p.s. The Cake is ALWAYS Partha, it’s just nice to have someone else to blame, LMAO.
I knew it was you who was eating the cake!
I’ve given up blaming…. I just eat the cake and choose to be happy, knowing that it’s sooooo goooooood for me, haha.
Since I read your comments yesterday, I have been practicing your method and laughing at my negative voice…. It’s really effective!
Not only does it take the power away from the negativity, but it also makes me feel good immediately…. It raises my vibration which is the whole aim of positive thinking or conscious living.
I guess I’m fortunate that I’m a ‘bit’ more advanced in age (in my mind that means wiser, more experienced, and more handsome, LOL) compared to you, and I have been walking the path of conscious awareness for longer than many others…. What I want to say is that everything becomes easier with time and practice, and since we have the rest of our lives to live, the more we can do each and every day to make our lives better, the better our lives will become each and every day…..
There comes a point when we give up worrying about what is happening in our lives, to the people around us, and in the world in general, and we begin living just for the pure enjoyment of living…. for the fun and excitement of it, for the learning, and sensations,…. just for the journey 🙂
What I mean by this is: If you want to eat the cake, ENJOY eating the cake. Because It’s your thoughts about what you are doing that determine if something is good or bad for you, Thoughts create reality!
Have a great day mate 🙂
Andrew
Andrew,
I think a lot of people want to be happy in their lives, but there are some circumstances that change the way we feel, and often, they’re circumstances out of our control. I too am a happy person in general, I will say. Even as a teenager, I was happy unless someone changed my mood. Usually, though, I would revert back to my happy state regardless of what people did to ruin my mood. I’ve been this way my whole life, always seeing the positive side of things, even those out of our control.
However, even the happiest person can have times of depression or doubt, even when we try to climb out of it. Money doesn’t buy happiness, that’s true, but lack of money doesn’t either. And while many people work towards a paycheck, to buy things, or pay bills, or whatever the reason, money is a necessity, no matter how we look at it.
I’m in one of those depressed moods today. I don’t want to write anything in my blog, I don’t even know what to write about. My muse isn’t with me today, and thus, I have no inspiration today, nor did I yesterday either. Stress is most likely a factor I’m sure. Stress over lack of money right now, as well as knowing that I’ll have a lack of money for the next 3 weeks because of circumstances out of my control.
It’s temporary, I get this, but it’s still frustrating nonetheless. It is nice seeing someone reminding us, the happier ones, to try to see the lighter things of life and to live it and be happy with what you have. But, alas, I’m having a rough go of it these last two days. I’m sure I’ll climb out of the mindset once again as the week goes on.
Here’s to hoping anyway!
Thanks for the words in this article. It is nice to see someone trying to lighten the mood, so to say.
Katrina
Hi Katrina.
Thanks for sharing. I agree that money is a necessity in today’s world, and having lots of it can certainly make life a lot easier and more enjoyable.
Not having money sucks big time. I have also been there in previous years and was frustrated because I was unable to do all the things that I was wanting to do.
I’m sorry to hear that you are stressed out at the moment, and are likely to be for the next three weeks due to money issues. I know it’s easy for an outsider to say something flippant like, ‘oh just snap out of it,’ but I also know that that does not help at all!
What I would like to try and express is that you do have choices. You know now that your problem is not going to be resolved for about three weeks. You are not feeling good at all at the moment. My question is this: Do you want to continue to feel this way for the next three weeks?…. Because it is really easy to carry on with this momentum of feeling bad, if you choose to.
You say that you understand the current situation is temporary and will change for the better in the near future, so instead of focusing your thoughts on this present moment where they are damaging you, (mentally, physically, and emotionally,) why not try and spend some of your time thinking about a time when the situation is resolved…. or change the subject altogether by thinking of completely different things that make you smile?
If we keep focusing our attention on the present, and the present is not good, we will never feel good. However, we can choose to feel good by focusing our minds elsewhere.
Don’t wait for a week or two to pass, because your happiness and satisfaction depend on you changing your mind now.
I wish you all the best 🙂
Andrew
Hi Andrew!
I was hooked within the first few paragraphs. I have wasted days and weeks waiting for something that I knew would make me happy over the weekend or counting down my days leading up to a vacation. And it’s true, we waste so many moments of what could be happiness in the present by searching for it in the future instead of right now. Finding our happiness within is so important but it’s an extremely hard task and it doesn’t happen overnight. I am still working on taking back my power and my control over how I react to things that happen in my life. I’m working on living here in the moment and taking more time to listen and to process the things around me.
It’s awesome that you now realize the benefits of being happy in the present, Haley.
It makes life so much better to be happy now, than putting off our happiness until some future thing falls into place for us…. because as we all know, some things just don’t turn out the way we hope they will.
Finding happiness NOW is a skill that we can learn, much like every other skill that we develop. And it does get easier the more we practice it, so soon you won’t need any reason to be happy, and all your family and friends will think you have gone crazy because you are happy all of the time! That will be a wonderful day 🙂
I wish you all the best on your journey,
Andrew
I love the expression that we can’t control our environment, but we can control the way we respond to it.
I know the feeling of failure and blaming others or society from a decade ago when the financial crisis had hit the world. My business suffered a lot from it and I felt like a victim.
A friend sort of sent me to a seminar that changed my life. Of course, it was my own choice to go to that seminar, but I am still grateful for my friend for her gentle push.
And it made me resilient to the present-day crisis because of COVID and the lockdowns. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I now keep asking myself “If I can’t do this or that, what is a different way to achieve the same results”.
The resulting feeling is so much better.
Are you in a lockdown as well or is your place doing better than over here in Spain?
Hi Hannie.
It’s interesting that we have to pay money to go to seminars to learn such basic things like “we can’t control our environment, but we can control the way we respond to it.” Why aren’t we taught this by our parents, or at school? I often wonder if the old school system that we went through was designed on purpose to separate us from our own inner power?
Fortunately, it’s never too late to learn, and every time we learn to be more self-reliant (mentally, physically, and emotionally) we are reclaiming control over our ability to create for ourselves AMAZING lives.
We are here, living a life….. so why not have a great life…… Our thoughts determine our choices and our choices create our circumstances and therefore the quality of our lives.
Choose great thoughts now, and now, and now, and life will be great!
Have a great day 🙂
Andrew
That feeling when you’re very much aware that what you’re doing is right is the same feeling I thrive out of.
Staying in a happy state is more than crucial for our growth, and I know that everyone who reads this comment will agree on that.
You said it best – “… the key to achieving great lives lies in our willingness to become aware of, and then consciously choose our thoughts so that they align with how we will feel when we have everything we want and have achieved all our goals!”
I can’t thank you enough for crafting such a fantastic article. Your content never seems to disappoint, and this post just confirmed my statement.
Keep up the excellent work, and I can’t wait to see your next masterpiece!
Gorjan
Wow…. Thank you for your encouraging comments. They are most appreciated.
You have summed it up perfectly. I write because of what you said…..”That feeling when you’re very much aware that what you’re doing is right is the same feeling I thrive out of.”
What an awesome experience it is to be alive and live in such a wonderful world!
Have a fantastic day, my friend.
Until next time,
Andrew