Most people seek out human ideas of happiness, and that usually involves happiness on their own terms. When we grow up, at some point, we’re asked, through our circumstances or our relationships, to relinquish human formulas for happiness. We’re even brought to question the idea of seeking happiness as a goal in its own right. We might ask whether happiness is possible.

It’s only when I surrender my own ideas of what I think will make me happy that I can, in some distant way, see what stands between me and my happiness. I do. I stand between myself and my happiness. Happiness is something my mind makes up. What I mean by this is that I have my own ideas about what will make me happy, and that I don’t really know what will make me happy because I don’t perceive my own nest interests. Yup; I don’t know what’s good for me. My ego doesn’t. It’s also deluded me into believing that I can (or should) be happy all the time. Like any other emotion, like bright, sunny days, happiness comes and goes. It may not be an ultimate state, or even a destination worth getting to. I need to surrender my own ideas about what will make me happy. I need to relinquish happiness as an ultimate goal.

You are alive. Life is, but life is not happiness. Love is, and you are love. Yet loving and being loved doesn’t always make us happy. Sometimes, love is painful.

When I accept these facts, I can then begin to seek that which is more enduring: peace, contentment, gratitude, and fulfillment. These are less intoxicating than happiness, less easily taken away, not subject to ups and downs like happiness is. They are more stable. They’re often less exciting, which is a feeling often confused with happiness. Seeking to be happy is more like a recipe, a formula that requires certain human ingredients that are guaranteed to produce a certain brew. But when the brew wears off, so does the happiness. And we’re left with the hangover of disillusionment, or boredom.

Happiness is often tied to externals. Peace, contentment and fulfillment are usually the results of an inside job. They’re tied to internals. One of the great conclusions of human experience is that, as individuals, we have little control over the external world. We have more choice over what transpires inside of us, but even there, our control over our emotions is limited. Control ends up a poor strategy for attaining a sense of wellbeing.

What we do have, almost always, is choice. Choice over what goes on on the outside may be limited. But it’s always unlimited on the inside. We’re always free to determine our responses to outside circumstances, and to inner conditions like thoughts and feelings. That gives us complete freedom. The problem with human notions of happiness is that they almost always define happiness – and the formulas through which it’s acquired – by insisting that externals operate on our own terms. Since we have little control over other people and circumstances, we end prisoners of the world.

It’s only when I let go of my old ideas – my own ideas – of happiness that I can be truly and deeply content, at peace, and fulfilled.

© 2025 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within