Chasing Happiness

In the corporate world, much is made of goals. Sales people have quotas. Account managers may have profitability numbers to hit. Customer service people have average call time metrics. Lawyers have billable hours targets. Our pay and often our jobs are linked to these goals.

When we are outside of the office, we often have other goals. Books to read. Places to travel. Hobbies to develop. We may have goals for our relationships and our children, too.

Much of this is based on a faulty premise--that if we achieve this, or have enough money to buy that, we will be happy. If we can simply check enough boxes off our to do lists, peace and prosperity await.

But every experience we can have comes and goes. There is nothing that we can keep forever.

Yet here we are, on the hamster wheel, chasing one experience after another, in the mistaken belief that one day, we will have enough of them to be, and to stay, happy.

If  happiness means an emotional high, then it is an experience like any other. With highs come lows. That is the nature of conditioned experience.

But if happiness instead means that our needs are met, then there is a way to be happy in each moment, and that is to rest in awareness, As awareness, as pure presence, as that which is conscious, we are beyond need.

That happiness is right here, right now. Always. Whether we meet our goals or not.

Jeff