about happiness

Happiness is not something that is earned or deserved. Happiness is not a moral issue, any more than the circulation of blood is a moral issue. Both are necessary to health and well being. Happiness is simply a "state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time." If you wait until you "deserve" to think pleasant thoughts, you are likely to think unpleasant thoughts concerning your own unworthiness.

One of the most pleasant thoughts to any human being is the thought that he is needed, that he is important enough to help and add to the happiness of some other human being. However, if we make a moral issue out of happiness and conceive of it as something to be earned as a sort of reward for being unselfish, we are very apt to feel guilty about wanting happiness. Happiness comes from being and acting unselfishly - as a natural accompaniment to the being and acting, not as a "pay off" or prize. "We are never living, but hoping to live; and, looking forward always to being happy, it is inevitable that we never are so," said Pascal.

I have found that one of the commonest causes of unhappiness among my patients is that they are attempting to live their lifes on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, nor enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence. They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid for, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably they are disappointed. Happiness is a mental habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced. It cannot be made contingent upon solving some external problem. When one problem is solved another appears to take its place. Life is a series of problems. If you are to be happy at all, you must be happy - period! not happy
"because of."

Excerpts taken from the book "Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz.