Happiness.
Almost everyone wants it.
And yet, we find it surprisingly difficult to be truly happy for long.
Maybe that’s because we often confuse happiness with pleasure.
There’s nothing wrong with pleasure.
A delicious piece of cake is wonderful.
But what if you’ve already eaten ten pieces?
Pleasure feels good. But it wears off.
And when we confuse happiness with pleasure, we quickly find ourselves on a hamster wheel:
Another wonderful experience.
Another vacation.
Something else to buy.
Another goal to achieve.
And then?
Sooner or later, we need the next thing.
Maybe we’re looking for happiness in the wrong place
We want as many pleasant moments as possible and as few unpleasant ones as possible.
Understandable.
But unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.
Life always brings us both:
Pleasure and discomfort.
Joy and sadness.
Winning and losing.
Connection and saying goodbye.
And none of it lasts forever.
That is the nature of life.
Maybe that’s one reason why we find it so difficult to be happy for long:
We look for happiness outside ourselves while wishing for a life that simply doesn’t exist.
But what if you looked at happiness from a completely different perspective?
What if Hermann Hesse was right?
A wonderful quote is attributed to Hermann Hesse:
“Happiness is love, nothing else. A person who knows how to love is happy.”
STOP.
Before you start thinking:
“Oh God, not this self-love stuff again …”
What if you replaced the word love with something else?
With:
Care.
Connection.
Appreciation.
Interest.
Kindness.
Compassion.
Suddenly, the quote takes on a completely different meaning.
Naked yoga and self-love
Naked yoga can help you accept yourself and your body.
With your strengths.
With your weaknesses.
With the things you like about yourself – and perhaps also the things you would rather hide.
But for me, naked yoga means something else as well:
Opening myself up.
Showing myself as I am.
And meeting other people with less judgment and more kindness.
And now comes a thought that may seem a little unusual:
Don’t take yourself so seriously
What if, for a moment, you stopped thinking about what could make you happy?
And instead, every day, you gave just one person something?
No flowers.
No chocolate.
No money.
Just a little:
Care.
Appreciation.
Interest.
Or kindness.
Nothing big.
Just one simple sentence:
“Thank you for …”
“I noticed that you …”
“What I especially appreciate about you is …”
“You did that really well.”
It might take just ten seconds.
Your challenge for this week
We often wait for someone or something to make us happy.
For something wonderful to happen.
For someone to praise us.
To see us.
To appreciate us.
To love us.
But what if you stopped waiting and started giving something yourself?
So I have a little challenge for you this week:
Every day, give one person a few sincere and kind words.
And don’t just notice what happens to the other person.
Notice what happens to you.
Maybe that’s where one of the little secrets of happiness can be found:
Stop searching for it for a moment.
LOve
Yours, Elke ❤️
