Happiness is not found in the present moment, or in the journey, or in succeeding.

1. “The secret to having it all, is believing you already do.”  Be happy now, because it is all you have.  You cannot change the past, you cannot control the future. You can only experience what is happening now, so enjoy it.  Be in the present moment.  Sadness comes from reliving our past shame and guilt, and from fearing the future.  Happiness is now. 

2. “Find Joy in the journey.”  Work toward your goals.  Work to make life better.  Strive, progress, move.  Have a goal in mind of how healthy you want to be, how much money you want to make, what job you want, where you want to live, etc, and go for it.  But don’t wait till you have those things to be happy – enjoy the journey.  Enjoy getting in shape.  Enjoy your daily exercise.  Enjoy working hard and learning and going to school, and slowly and surely working toward your goals.  If you reach them, great, but the joy is in the journey, not in the arrival.
 

3. It isn’t about starting a project – but finishing it.  If you never finish school, never get the job, never get married and have the family, never buy the car, never finish the project – then what do you have? “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Happiness is in finishing.  Achieving.  Earning the prize, winning the game, getting the trophy.  Happiness is never quitting. It is getting the life you want - having the stable job with good insurance and paid vacation.  Happiness is getting it done.

Those who win, achieve, and succeed will often mock those finding joy in the journey because “they’re only doing that to console themselves for not getting what they really wanted.  2^nd place has to find an excuse to be happy.”

Those enjoying the journey say that the ones focused on winning are shallow and self-centered.  They can’t appreciate teamwork unless it results in a Championship ring.  Joy is found in the doing.  Joy is found in moving the right direction, no matter if you get there or not.

Those who enjoy the present moment would say the others are enjoying the present moment, just not very often.   They enjoy it when they’re winning, and hate the present moment when they’re losing.  Those enjoying the journey will only be happy when they are moving forward, but can’t handle stillness, they’ll call it stagnation.  They may handle failure better than the “winners” but they are set up to be unhappy because they still seek it externally, not from within.

I think the answer is not #1 or #2 or #3. 
 

Happiness is not “or,” it’s “and.”

Life is not about one thing OR the other.  It is about accepting the seeming contradiction of AND.  Enjoy life right now, no matter what is happening, AND enjoy improving, getting better, becoming something more, AND enjoy succeeding and reaching goals and achieving.

Once you see that these 3 are not mutually exclusive but meant to all be used in concert, in a synergistic relationship - then you can be happy now, AND enjoy working toward your goals, AND enjoy reaching them.

Three Degrees of Happiness

How many books and articles have been written about "happiness?"

The very declaration of our nation's independence says that our Creator endowed us with "certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Many people view happiness as the goal and purpose of life.  In my work I see hundreds of patients who are seeking it.  Some through family, others through friends, and others in a joint or bottle.  Some think a pill will grant it, others are certain that money is the key.

Personally, I have found three degrees of happiness.  There are three types, three sources, three keys to happiness.  They are pleasure, inner-peace, and eternal joy.

1. Pleasure: That which gives us momentary enjoyment.  

Pleasure can be both good and bad.  One can find pleasure in listening to a favorite song, eating a piece of chocolate, hearing a funny joke, or helping a friend.  It can be found in seeing someone "get what they deserve," or in a forbidden pleasure, in skipping school or breaking the rules or laws.  It can be found in alcohol, cocaine, heroin, LSD, marijuana, caffeine, or pure vanilla ice cream.  

Pleasure doesn't differentiate between right and wrong, short term or long term consequences. Pleasure is now. 

2. Inner Peace: Living according to our values.

Everyone has their own values, their own ideals.  Everyone has a vision of what they should be, how they should be different, what actions they should or shouldn't be doing.  These values may come from parents, friends, society, religion, or many other sources.  Many values include Family, Friendship, Work, Education, Recreation, Spirituality, Community, Health, the Environment, the Arts, etc...

Inner Peace comes from living according to your ideals.  It comes from having less regret and more fulfillments.  When your mind no longer argues between what you ARE doing and what you SHOULD be doing, that is inner peace. 

Most self help books are about these first two degrees of happiness.  They encourage pleasure as long as the means are in-line with your values.  They help people reach inner peace by eliminating internal conflict.

The problem is that not all values are good.  Criminal Gangs have values.  They may value gang loyalty to such a high degree that one would steal, kill, and serve time in prison to have the inner peace of being loyal and true to their word.  Many people can reach inner peace and still be a terror to society, to their families, their communities.  
Most any religion has its extremists: they are at complete inner peace as they engage in Crusades, terrorist bombings, lynchings, etc...

Inner peace is not the end goal.

3. Eternal Joy:  Living according to universal principles.

When our values match universal principles, then we can find true happiness; the joy that lasts and is independent of circumstance.

Principles are not practices and they are not specific to one religion or society.  They are universal. Everyone knows them and values them, though they interpret them differently 

Examples include: Fairness, Integrity, Honesty, Human Dignity, Service, Quality, Potential, and Patience.

I often think of the question: "Do I have happy moments, or a happy life?"

Happy moments are easy to come by, but they don't last.  In fact the more we do the same thing seeking the same level of pleasure, the more we'll be disappointed.  Whether it be thrills, or food, or drugs, or a new relationship - That momentary pleasure is usually best the first time.  Unless it also leads to inner peace or eternal joy, it will fade and we will move on to something else.

We can have inner peace and still have a miserable life, we simply won't care.  With inner peace we believe we are right and we will continue to think so because we are living by our values.  Other people's lives, opinions, or judgments don't matter because we have inner peace.  Many people consider this the ultimate goal. -It is the first step only.

Once we discover eternal and universal principles, then we can align our values with those principles. We can make goals according to those principles.  It won't always matter if we reach every goal or not. We may change our minds on goals or choose something new to work toward.  Since the principles never change, the change in goals won't matter because we've been moving in the right direction the entire time.

All three degrees of happiness are important, but the only way to enjoy pleasure without future regret is to make the pleasure match our values.  The only way to enjoy inner peace and building lasting happiness for ourselves and everyone around us is to make our values match universal principles.