Pursuit Of Happiness?

[quoteguy]

Hello Friends,

Hope all is well. This quote comes from C.P. Snow, an English novelist and scientist. He is best known for his work Science and Government

"The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it."

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? If you are always chasing after something, you will never catch it. You can't get to something that you're pursuing. It's impossible. Living in the "now" is a mindset that we all need to adopt.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't plan for the future. I'm saying, start living as if you are already living your future. If you look at it like that you will see there is no future but only now.

I think the worst phrase you could use in terms of your success is, "as soon as." "As soon as I get that raise, I'll buy that car." "As soon as my spouse stops nagging me, I'll start spending more time." "As soon as I get some time, I'll start exercising." Can you see the problem with using this phrase? You will never get the raise. Your spouse will never stop nagging you. You will never find time to exercise.

This thought process keeps all your hopes and dreams out of reach and in the future. Start meditating on the life that you want. Spend a few minutes a day by yourself, visualizing exactly what you want.

If you want that house, visualize yourself living in it and feel good about it. If you want your spouse to stop naggng you, picture yourself with that person in loving situations and feel good about it. If you want to lose weight, see yourself wearing that dream outfit and feel good about it.

"Feeling good" about it is what speeds up the process of getting what you want. "Feelng Good" is what makes it real to you. You feel happy about it. You become enthused and start the creation process of your new existance. You can always say and do the things that you are supposed to, but if you don't believe it, and "feel good" about it nothing will ever happen.

Don't pursue happiness. Just have it. Just live it. Just be it.

Thanks for listening

[BlueCrane]

Science and Government ... they've been leading us astray before, haven't they?

I guess it depends how you define 'pursuit' - the LOA is a way to pursue our desires, we all use it ... either consciously or unconsciously ... this universal law is a tool that can be applied in productive or unproductive ways, so there is a skill involved here which has to be learned or developed.

And that's 'pursuit' in my book.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by quoteguy

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? If you are always chasing after something, you will never catch it. You can't get to something that you're pursuing. It's impossible.

In some cases there may be some truth to that, but would you really say that someone will never graduate if they pursue a degree? Can you only catch someone when playing tag after you stop chasing them? I think there are definite choices a person can make in life that will aid in facilitating happiness, which equates to pursuing it. For me, it involves building/maintaining relationships, exercising regularly, accepting new/interesting challenges, getting exposed to new ideas, eating well at least part time, and so on.

[CaptainStubbs]

Originally Posted by quoteguy

Don't pursue happiness. Just have it. Just live it. Just be it.

That's a nice one, thanks.

[quoteguy]

Originally Posted by openeyes

In some cases there may be some truth to that, but would you really say that someone will never graduate if they pursue a degree? Can you only catch someone when playing tag after you stop chasing them? I think there are definite choices a person can make in life that will aid in facilitating happiness, which equates to pursuing it. For me, it involves building/maintaining relationships, exercising regularly, accepting new/interesting challenges, getting exposed to new ideas, eating well at least part time, and so on.

Hi Openeyes.

I think you explained yourself very well and this was the point I was trying to make. This is why I have grown to love this forum, because if you don't explain yourself well, someone else will pick up the slack.

From what you're telling me it sounds as if you are living in the moment. Maintaning relationships, exercising regularly, accepting new interest. These are all active words. You are living the life now.

When I say pursuit. I mean the "planning" stage that we sometimes get stuck in. Or the "clause" affect. "If this happens, then I'll do this." This is when pursuit isn't good anymore. It implies the future. It again implies limits. You will only do "something" if "another thing" happens.

So on a simplistic level, you can catch someone in a game of tag if you pursue them. You will get that degree if you pursue that. But in these two examples, we can see movement and activity is needed in order to reach these goals. Neither will happlen if we do nothing. We tend to become stagnant in the "planning" stage. There is a time to plan and there is a time to act. I'm focusing on acting.

[openeyes]

Originally Posted by quoteguy

From what you're telling me it sounds as if you are living in the moment. Maintaning relationships, exercising regularly, accepting new interest. These are all active words. You are living the life now.

I can agree with that. I tend to do a mix of action and research, with the extent of my research largely being to find new ideas/better ways of doing what I want and then acting on it. If I don't see myself making use of an idea anytime in the near future I let it go and quickly move on.

For someone caught up in reading, a book that was inspirational for me to become more action driven was James Strock's Theodore Roosevelt on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Bully Pulpit. Though a man of extreme action, Teddy still read at least one book per day, just as I average a minimum of 2-3 books per week plus school work and more active pursuits.

As an example of some of the things I'm up to at the moment, I see friends most every day, ride my bicycle most everywhere, just got back from an improv comedy class, plan on taking my first glider flight this Sunday morning and have an improv performance later that night.

[Nelson]

Don't pursue happiness. Just have it. Just live it. Just be it

Tell that one to the starving people living in civil war and an AIDS epidemic, buddy.

We are all living life in the Now. The Now isnt a jolly time for everybody, so they aim to improve it. Some of us have great lives and we still aim higher.

Because we all want a BETTER life on some level. That's what is great about being alive, it can always get better.

Sitting on your rump enjoying the scenery is great - if you've got good scenery.

The burning drive to make life greater and more pleasureable is, in my mind, what seperates humankind from any other creature.

[Dan.Linehan]

I make myself rich by making my wants few.

- Thoreau.

I have lived through a great deal, and I think I have found what is needed for happiness: a quiet secluded life here in the depths of the country, with the possibility of doing good to people to whom it is easy to do good which they are not accustomed to receiving; then work - work which one hopes may be of some use; then leisure, nature, books, music, love for a kindred spirit - such is my idea of happiness, and I dreamed of none higher.

- Leo Tolstoy.

[quoteguy]

Originally Posted by Nelson

Tell that one to the starving people living in civil war and an AIDS epidemic, buddy.

We are all living life in the Now. The Now isnt a jolly time for everybody, so they aim to improve it. Some of us have great lives and we still aim higher.

Because we all want a BETTER life on some level. That's what is great about being alive, it can always get better.

Sitting on your rump enjoying the scenery is great - if you've got good scenery.

The burning drive to make life greater and more pleasureable is, in my mind, what seperates humankind from any other creature.

Here's a related quote that I found.

"If you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you hope will happen, you don't do it, and it won't happen. " -Desiderius Erasmus

I don't think we should put limits on people. The situations that you described do suck, but they still have hope. Posibilities are still out there.

People who are sick have the ability to heal themselves through the power of thought.

I'm reading "The True Power of Water" by Masaru Emoto. He discovered that you can changed the properties of water by sending your "vibrations" to it.

He put the word "love" on a bottle of water and then froze it. He took pictures of the ice crystals and they were beautiful. It looked like a snowflake.

Next he did the same with the word "hate". The water couldn't form a crystal even when frozen. The image appeared discolored and fragmented.

From this Emoto came to the conclusion that he could use water with the proper words on the bottle to promote healing. Emoto found that our emotions affect different parts of the body.

Many ailments we experience are our own fault. We get ulcers from stress and worry. Not from external forces. Emoto found that he could counteract disease by finding the source of the disturbance and then make special "hado" water to start the healing process. I don't think I'm doing the book justice. Everyone should read it for themselves.

Civil War. The AIDS epidemic. World hunger. It all sucks, but we need to examine why we are experiencing these problems. As a whole, we are all apart of one big body. Like Emoto, we need to find the source of the problems and then counteract them. Difficult but not impossibe.