Our Pursuit of Happiness

Lately, I've had a lot of time on my hands to reflect on my decisions in life and decide whether or not they've benefited me or were pointless. I'm not saying that I regret any of my decisions, in fact, I believe that if I didn't make any of my past decisions I may not have ended up in the same mindset or situation I am today. It's just good to reflect back on what you have done to see if you could have done anything to improve your circumstances. For example, I'm procrastinating on this project that I most definitely had time to complete earlier this week. Anyways, I digress. Back to the main point. Have you ever found yourself repeating the same steps over and over again because of some feeling or goal you're chasing? I've felt that way for a while now, but I feel now that I am able to put my thoughts on paper.

There is a movie that is very popular amongst my family members (and I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't already) and it is
"The Pursuit of Happyness". The main character is played by Will Smith himself, and I believe it is a good representation of what this blog is about.

To quickly summarize the movie, the main character ends up accomplishing his goal of finding true happiness even though his current situation could be better. The movie relates to me in a personal way, however, I find that I'm taking the same path that Will Smith is taking, but I'm not finding the same results.

Personally, I find that my "pursuit of happiness" is repetitive and useless. Although I feel waves and "episodes" -as some may call it- of happiness and laughter, those moments are only temporary, and it appears that I have to consistently perform a "to-do list" of chores in order to obtain that same feeling. It's honestly very draining and it has left me feeling distressed. No matter what I do to find happiness, I end up in a repetitive cycle that appears to never end. 

Although this is an assignment, I have utilized this assignment for my AP American Literature class to find possible solutions to questions I have in my life. For this assignment, we were required to listen to a podcast that interested us in some way or related to our semester-long "Focus Project". I found a podcast that discussed the repetitive actions of chasing happiness and how we can change our actions in order for our ways to be more effective (podcast link here). The first few minutes of the podcast, it discusses the difference between the value of "buying" experiences and buying materials. It may seem like a no-brainer that it is obviously better to buy experiences, however, we often tend to buy material items. Whenever we go on vacation to a new location for the first time, we often buy a souvenir that reminds us of the time we went to that spot. If it's a place outside of the country, you may buy an item or symbol that is special to that culture.

What I've learned, however, is that although experiences and memories last longer because they allow us to somewhat "relive" those moments that we cherish, material goods help us recall certain details that may otherwise be left out. So purchasing items in order to fulfill your happiness isn't a terrible thing, however, it's good to remember that a proper balance between the two is essential.

This podcast put many of my thoughts into words and definitions into something that I can grasp, one of which stood out to me. The metaphor of "running on a treadmill" is often used to describe how one's continuous actions end up not taking them anywhere. The terminology for this is the "hedonic treadmill" which depicts the idea that "no matter how hard we try to get happier, we can't". 

Even though it feels like we're doing things that should make us happy, these actions aren't actually changing how happy we are. The lack of achievement or happiness we receive causes us to set higher and higher expectations that end up becoming impossible to achieve. In order to combat this constant action, there are many steps we can take.

The step (specifically outlined in the podcast) we can take is depriving ourselves of the things we enjoy. We believe that a state of "happiness" comes from having all the things we enjoy having/doing all at the same time. However, this is far from the case. Instead, happiness is better enjoyed by allowing ourselves to only enjoy certain tasks at a time, and not all at once. It's almost like a big family reunion (this is a terrible analogy by the way). It's great to see all your family there at once and talk to all of them in passing, but when they're all gone and the reunion is over, you wish you took the time to talk to each of them independently instead of rushing to try and talk to all of them.

If you find yourself on this metaphorical treadmill of chasing happiness, I've been there. It doesn't seem like a bad place to be in while you're in the moment, however, in the long run (ha, get it?) it doesn't pay off. We end up physically exhausting ourselves to the point where we can no longer satisfy ourselves. Once you take a step off the treadmill, however, and see how far you've actually traveled, you can see that you've made no progress, even though your environment and the state you are in say otherwise. That, my friend, is the key to capturing your happiness.