Self Fulfilled

Almost all the people I know have heard the famous quotation that happiness comes from within.  Some fall back on it because it makes them (to them, at least) sound wise and thoughtful, while others consider it a convenient explanation to deal with life’s assorted mess-ups.

As a life coach, I deal with unhappy people on a daily basis. Behind each paranoia, addiction and conflict, there is the core issue of trying to fill ugly gaping holes in the soul. The person feels inadequate and empty inside, and is seeking something to make things right. The more they seek out, the more they find, and the more they find, the more they feel exhausted, inadequate and empty. It becomes a vicious cycle.

Poet e.e. Cummings said: “The hardest thing in the world is being yourself, for there is no reason to rejoice for the man who would rather walk with the noise and avoid the voice.”

While all of us are always trying very hard to grasp that elusive thing called happiness, it may well be that being happy equals being yourself?

I cannot help concurring, but first let me digress a little. I once read a study that even though the buying power of the average American had tripled since 1950, it didn’t automatically make them three times happier than almost 60 years earlier. In fact, despite being the wealthiest nation on earth, the U.S. was only 23rd according to the World's Happiest Countries Index in 2006; the experts mentioned that one of the most fundamental reasons for such a low score is the spotty health care system. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess where Indonesia ranks today.

Now that we are clear wealth and money does not equal happiness, how about a sense of accomplishment, success and social status? Don’t those high-achievers, risk-takers always look happy, or at least happier, than most of us?

It is a common misconception. As strange as this may sound, many of those people are not happy, either. I come to this relatively simplistic conclusion because most of my clients have good careers, status and family backgrounds. They are not only sharp, skilled and committed, but also an inspiration for others. Yet they still stumble in the pursuit of happiness and every now and then find themselves weeping like a baby in their psychologist’s office. In reality, life consultation and coaching is a business geared toward people who have reached such personal and professional heights, rather than for people with moderate success.

So that’s why, coming back to the e.e. Cummings’ proposition, I do think that happiness is relevant to how one perceive one’s self. It’s a spiritual thing, a pilgrimage in a way. The Greek word for happiness is eudaimonia, which means “having a well disposed divine power”. That’s the reason why people who makes a habit of connecting to their soul, the inner self – be it in form of prayer, meditation or other religious practices – reportedly have a higher score card on their happiness index. Of course that is not to be confused with saying that religion will make you happy; I’m just proposing that it often opens the door to being happy and reaching a certain degree of happiness.

What if someone is not a religious person, can he still grasp happiness? I do believe he or she can, so as long as there are regular reflective moments to validate, congratulate, forgive, love and inspire his or her self. Such care empowers the self to be complete, fulfilled and “divine”. It’s only when one empowers and clothes oneself with external validation, such as through luxury, fame, status and accomplishments, that the self becomes so unattended, insecure and finally lost.

Understanding what entails happiness is even more crucial than finding it because people, in my experience, wouldn’t be see things they are not ready to perceive. I guess it’s not just a coincidence that a movie my partner and I watched recently provided a very interesting insight: “They say that in the beginning Happiness was a large crystal ball. The Gods used to play with it. One day, while they were asleep, Happiness fell on Earth and shattered into millions of tiny pieces. People were so fascinated with their beauty that they immediately began collecting them. Some gathered a lot, others found only a few. No one, however, could collect them all.”

Happiness comes from within because you are the happiness itself. We are that large crystal ball that shattered into millions of tiny pieces. Yet instead of trying to pick ourselves up, which is a long, hard and tedious task, we set our sights on things that are easier to achieve. We desire material things because they are a simple way of cheating ourselves: they make us feel more desirable, loveable, and useful than we think we are. Just as the US lags in the happiness index despite the nation’s extravagant lifestyle, we fall short of happiness because we have a spotty self-care system.

Instead of healing ourselves, we’re so busy with temporary patches and cosmetics that make us look better. To quote the infamous Tyler Durden in Fight Club, “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh** we don't need.” We need to learn to become content and secure with just our bare selves, stripped away from our reputation, birthright and whatnots.

We need to know how to love ourselves so that we know exactly how it feels and looks like when somebody else loves us, too. We need to know that everything else loses its value when the inner-self is not being taken care of. Scientifically speaking, according to doctors and health workers, when we pay the utmost attention to our self, we become more resistant to disease and other bio-psychological unhappiness.

As I grow older, both in life and in my consultancy career, I realize that life isn’t much about patching the holes than acknowledging and taking care of the bucket itself. That’s why if you are constantly longing for external objects to buy to make you feel better, then better buy yourself a mirror. It’s the best – and also the cheapest – therapeutic tool in the pursuit of happiness.

– Lex dePraxis

Back to The top page