Great article on happiness SC. Thanks for posting. :)
"And yet despite the fact that happiness is consistently inconsistent, permanently impermanent, we judge ourselves as failures when we cannot maintain consistent happiness. People who are not happy are seen as failures; it is our fault that we cannot hold onto happiness. We are not trying hard enough, not living our life right. And after all, no one wants to be a around a Debbie Downer, you might catch what she has. Regardless of unceasing evidence to the contrary, we keep demanding and expecting that happiness be something that it isn't -- that life be something that it isn't.
Happiness -- as a goal in life -- is the wrong goal. Rather than chasing happiness, steadfastly defending the belief that somewhere, somehow, if we find the right thing we will indeed be able to hold onto happiness for good, we need to find a new goal for life. We need to uncover a state of well-being, deeper than happiness, a state that can survive the swings of circumstance, happiness and unhappiness, gaining and losing what we want and the feelings that make up every human life.
Well-being is an internal state, not dependent upon any external circumstances. It is a result of our attitude towards our feelings, not the nature of the feelings themselves and not the circumstances that are causing the feelings. It is the comfort that we bring ourselves when disappointment is the cloud in our sky, the gratitude that we invoke when joy floats through, the kindness that we offer whatever feelings pass into and out of our inner landscape, regardless of what they may be. So too, well-being is an ongoing process, not an object that we obtain. True well-being can only happen in the now, and devolves into an intellectual concept when applied to the past or the future. There is never a moment when we can assume we simply have it; well-being is sustained by paying attention to the moments of our life, being present and noticing what's here. The substance of well-being is our own compassionate presence -- a compassion for what we are living now. "