5 Uncomfortable and Inconvenient Truths About Finding Happiness

And why most people won’t find deep and true happiness

In many regards, I can honestly say that I am happy. Is life perfect? Not even close. Do I feel great, wonderful and amazing all of the time? Of course not. Anyone that says they are is probably lying. I’m happy to tell you the keys and secrets to happiness. More than happy. All I ask is for your claps, upvotes, likes and follows. I truly honestly want everyone else to be happy because I just want to live in a better world where it’s easier to connect to other people and have rich fulfilling relationships with them. I truly just wish that I could live in a world with people that I could share sadness and empathy.

Happy people, truly happy people are a lot more altruistic. We just want everyone else to be happy because that’s what makes us happier. This is a lost concept in a society where it feels like we’re all just running a race and everything we do is to just get ahead of the next person, we’re just way to competitive.

Happiness isn’t what you think it is

But happiness is tricky. It’s a tricky concept and it’s a tricky thing to practice. It almost seems deceptively tricky. There’s a reason why happiness escapes and evades so many people. It seems like the people who want happiness the most are also the ones that are most resistant to the truth of happiness. They want it to be simple and easy. They want the entire process to be a happy pleasant one and the ugly and unfortunate truth about happiness is that the process of acquiring it is often a difficult and painful one. It’s a little bit more like making sausage. It’s kind of a grind.

They say that tree branches can’t reach heaven unless the roots have reached down to hell. Happy people, like a tree, have deep and strong roots which enable the person to withstand the inevitable turbulence and chaos of life. Strong roots make a tree and person quite resilient. Even the strongest storms can’t blow them over. The process of growing your roots deep and strong is one of pain and sacrifice. Before your branches can reach heaven, your roots must penetrate hell.

The story of becoming happy is one of sadness, grief, heartache and pain. It’s truly a hero’s journey. I am happier now in my life than I have ever been and I’ll put you on the path if you care to listen. The unfortunate truth about miserable people is that they are extremely rigid in their need to cling to what is causing them to be miserable. They incessantly keep doing what isn’t working even when it’s obvious that it’s not working. If you want to be happy there are many things that you must do…

“What would you be willing to do to be happy?”

1. Rebellion — Happy and healthy people are rebellious people. Life demands obedience and conformity and it only produces misery and imprisonment. Happy people are rebellious. They realize that they will lose the approval of many but approval from other people never creates true deep and lasting happiness. Ever. This is wisdom that bubbles up from every great teacher and ancient sage. You have to be okay with mom and being upset that you don’t want to go to the college they want to or inherit the family insurance business. You have to be okay with people looking at you sideways and ignore the hints that they think you’re crazy. Happiness requires you to be an outcast, at least to an extent but it also garners fierce loyalty. That type of unapologetic authenticity and loyalty to yourself really speaks to certain people. They will love you for it and while it might feel good, you don’t need it.
2. Anarchy — Similar to being a rebel. You also have to be a bit of an anarchist. You must be willing to reject the established order. Anarchy is about not following the herd and rejecting the one-size-fits all checklist that is handed to us. Being happy requires you to go against the established order and the expected way of doing things. Just like rebellion, happiness requires you to be this kind of outcast. People will tell you to give up your values and join the herd. Shut up and obey. The anarchist is the one that knows that the established order is imprisonment and rejects it entirely. The anarchist uses the herd as a street sign of what not to do. Most people are miserable and if you do what most people do you’ll also be miserable. Happiness requires rejection. It requires you to be a black sheep. Let me clear though, being an anarchist does not mean violence, it does not mean fighting. Fighting is miserable. It just means rebelling against what’s expected.
3. You must become uncomfortable — Happiness can only be found through discomfort; it’s essentially the vehicle. If you don’t ride it, you won’t arrive. Discomfort stretches you and enables you to grow through changing your perspective. Modern comforts have been sold to us as a means to happiness. It’s a lie and it’s a lie because people want to make money and get rich. Of course they’re going to tell you what they’re selling is going to make you happy. The more we avoid discomfort the more we’re going to be slaves to misery. Discomfort makes you strong, resilient and durable. It teaches you. If you want to be happy you have to do what’s hard when you can easily just do what’s easy. Even as I write this I had a counseling session earlier in the day with a young person that was struggling and intended to leave, go home, roll a fat joint (his words) and fall asleep. I told him that’s why he’s miserable. He just chooses what’s easy and comfortable. The ugly truth that people don’t want to realize is that true happiness, the deep and lasting happiness is cultivated through the process of doing what’s hard and what’s uncomfortable. People will reject this notion right off the bat because they’ve been conditioned to believe that comfort is happiness. It’s not. I challenged this young adult to do what was hard and uncomfortable instead of what was easy and comfortable. That’s how he was going to grow.
4. You have to take risks — Here’s the thing. Happiness requires risks. It requires you to be willing to fall flat on your face. It requires you to potentially feel pain. Being deeply in love is like this. You’ll never fall deeply in love if you’re not willing to take a risk. I call it “the leap” and it’s essentially where you have to take a chance or take a risk. It has tremendous potential to be quite painful. There’s a chance you’ll get your heartbroken. But you’ll never be truly in love as long as you play it safe. That’s the truth. Happiness is the same way. You’ll never be happy if you just play it safe. The other day an 18-year-old told me that he went to his Kenpo dojo and sparred with at least five black belts when he’s the lowest rank. According to him, he got the crap kicked out of him and he could barely walk afterward. He went into it knowing it would be painful and he went into it knowing he would likely fail but he did it anyway. It turned out to be an extremely rewarding experience for him. He was smiling about it, he was glad that he did it. He took a risk and it made him happy. Acquiring happiness comes with the risk of feeling pain. Do it anyway. It comes with the risk of feeling incredible sadness. Do it anyway. It comes with the risk of failure or rejection. Do it anyway. This is the necessary and unavoidable process of becoming happy. It comes with the necessity to face difficult emotions and uncomfortable personal truths. Do it anyway. This is how happiness is cultivated.
5. Happiness requires sacrifice — I don’t believe that billionaires are happy and it’s partially because they have everything. They don’t have to make sacrifices. Sacrifices make us earn our happiness and when we earn it we love and we appreciate it that much more. The biggest sacrifices are things that you had thought and believed were extremely important to you and perhaps you chased them tirelessly and ended up miserable anyways. A growing process has to take place where you will be faced with the need to let go of what you thought was important to you in order to be happy and so the challenge is simply realizing that if it doesn’t make you happy, why is it so important to you in the first place? The pain of becoming happy is realizing how much time, effort and resources were wasted on something that’s keeping you miserable. Maybe you want a BMW because you believe that it will give you a lot of happiness and satisfaction and when it doesn’t because it won’t, would you be willing to give it up or would you keep trying to make it create happiness?

Most people won’t find happiness. They just won’t. They’re not ready or willing to accept these hard and fast laws of creating it. If you’ve never tasted true happiness I will tell you this… my friend… it’s so much better than you can possibly imagine. The painful process is more than worth it. I wouldn’t trade places with most of you for any amount of money. But by God, I’ve earned it which is one reason why I appreciate it so much. I’ve earned it. I climbed my way out of hell, overcame my childhood trauma and set out with the decision to not leave a single stone unturned. As a result, I’m tired and my fingers are raw from clawing the gold from the stone but I’m more certain now, more than ever, how to be happy.

I ask a lot of people what they would do to be happy. I’m a therapist. I ask a lot of people. Most of them say “anything” and yet when they are shown the path they insist on clinging to what’s making them miserable. Happy or miserable? There’s no real middle ground here. What’s your choice?