In his book “The Art Of Happiness,” The Dali Lama argues that the sole purpose of life is to pursue happiness.
“The purpose of life is to seek happiness. Whether you believe in religion or not, we all are searching for something better in our lives. Therefore, the goal of life is to find happiness,” said The Dali Lama.
So many of us seek happiness but are clueless on how to obtain it or where it comes from.
In this post, I will give you five simple ways to increase your happiness:
Focus on what you can control
This is a core tenant in the philosophy of Stoicism. So many things happen in our life that are out of our control. We don’t control how other people think or act, we don’t control what happens to us, we don’t control whether or not somebody likes us. What we do control is our response. We control our attitude. We control our work ethic. We control our own thoughts and perspective on a given topic.
Focusing on what you can’t control is one of the primary causes of unhappiness. When you focus on what you can’t control, you essentially make yourself helpless. When you focus on what you can control, you make yourself powerful.
Instead of complaining about not getting a job opportunity because the president gave the job to his son, you can choose to put your hard hat on and get to work. Instead of cursing the president for being bias, you can take a deep look at your own weakness and short comings.
Someone who focuses on what they can’t control will blame the president and envy the son. Someone who focuses on what they can control will focus on what they can do better next time they interview for a job.
The person in scenario A is going to be miserable because they surrender control. The person in scenario B is going to be much happier because they seize control.
Find peace in the moment
One of the major reasons why so many people are so unhappy today is because they are never living in the present moment. They are always focused on the past or fixated on the future. For so many people, the present moment is never enough.
If you choose to place your focus on whatever you are doing in the present moment, you will be much happier. Think about all of the culprits of stress or anxiety in your life. Almost always, the source of our unhappiness deals with fretting over the past or worrying about the future. While the present moment is almost never perfect, it is always enough to make you happy.
No matter what is going on in your life, if you take a second to be present in the moment, I can almost guarantee that you have something to be happy about. It could be the smallest thing, too! But that is the beauty of finding peace in the moment. When we are in the present moment, we allow the smallest and simplest things to bring us joy.
Find enjoyable hobbies
A lot of the time, we focus so much on work and productivity to the extent that we give ourselves no time to find enjoyable hobbies. Happiness and balance go together. You need to have balance if you want to be happy.
You can be a hard worker and still find enjoyable hobbies.
Not only will finding hobbies make you better at your work, as it will equip you with a different perspective, but it also will help make you a better, more well-rounded person. And if you are a better, more well-rounded person, then chances are you will be a much happier person.
Cultivate quality relationships
They say you are the sum of who you associate with.
Not everybody you surround yourself with has to challenge you intellectually, or be your best friend, or be your soulmate, but at the very least, you should enjoy being around this person.
Think about what you are getting out of a given relationship. And then to flip it, think about what you are giving in your relationships. If you are getting a lot in a relationship but not giving much, you should probably do some soul searching. If you are giving a lot in a relationship but not getting much back, you should probably make a change.
If you feel that the relationships with the most important people in your life are a bit shaky, then work on improving them. If you feel you don’t have enough high-quality relationships, then put yourself out there and try to find some.
If your relationships are healthy, I guarantee that you will be a happier person.
Be Kind
A lot of people think of being kind as something that will help increase other people’s happiness. And while this is certainly true, studies show that treating people with kindness will actually have a significant positive impact on your own happiness.
In a study done by the journal of social psychology, 86 people were asked to measure their life satisfaction. After this, each person was assigned to one out of three groups. One group was told to perform a daily act of kindness. Another group was told to try something new each day. The third and final group received now specific instructions.
At the end of the ten-day experiment, participants were once again told to measure their life satisfaction.
The group of people instructed to perform daily acts of kindness and the group of people instructed to try something new every day both saw their life satisfaction scores soar. The third group saw no real change in life satisfaction.
So instead of being kind for the sole purpose of increasing other’s happiness, you can also be kind to increase you own happiness.