Happiness Is Learned
PART II - HAPPINESS
The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness.
We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse
LEARNING HAPPINESS
Don’t take yourself so seriously. You’re just a monkey with a plan.
HAPPINESS IS LEARNED
Ten years ago, if you would have asked me how happy I was, I would have dismissed the question. I didn’t want to talk about it.
On a scale of 1–10, I would have said 2/10 or 3/10. Maybe 4/10 on my best days. But I did not value being happy.
Today, I am a 9/10. And yes, having money helps, but it’s actually a very small piece of it. Most of it comes from learning over the years my own happiness is the most important thing to me, and I’ve cultivated it with a lot of techniques. [10]
Maybe happiness is not something you inherit or even choose, but a highly personal skill that can be learned, like fitness or nutrition.
Happiness is a very evolving thing, I think, like all the great questions. When you’re a little kid, you go to your mom and ask, “What happens when we die? Is there a Santa Claus? Is there a God? Should I be happy? Who should I marry?” Those kinds of things. There are no glib answers because no answers apply to everybody. These kinds of questions ultimately do have answers, but they have personal answers.
The answer that works for me is going to be nonsense to you, and vice versa. Whatever happiness means to me, it means something different to you. I think it’s very important to explore what these definitions are.
For some people I know, it’s a flow state. For some people, it’s satisfaction. For some people, it’s a feeling of contentment. My definition keeps evolving. The answer I would have given you a year ago will be different than what I tell you now.
Today, I believe happiness is really a default state. Happiness is there when you remove the sense of something missing in your life.
We are highly judgmental survival-and-replication machines. We constantly walk around thinking, “I need this,” or “I need that,” trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.
In that absence, for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content, and you are happy. Feel free to disagree. Again, it’s different for everybody.
People mistakenly believe happiness is just about positive thoughts and positive actions. The more I’ve read, the more I’ve learned, and the more I’ve experienced (because I verify this for myself), every positive thought essentially holds within it a negative thought. It is a contrast to something negative. The Tao Te Ching says this more articulately than I ever could, but it’s all duality and polarity. If I say I’m happy, that means I was sad at some point. If I say he’s attractive, then somebody else is unattractive. Every positive thought even has a seed of a negative thought within it and vice versa, which is why a lot of greatness in life comes out of suffering. You have to view the negative before you can aspire to and appreciate the positive.
To me, happiness is not about positive thoughts. It’s not about negative thoughts. It’s about the absence of desire, especially the absence of desire for external things. The fewer desires I can have, the more I can accept the current state of things, the less my mind is moving, because the mind really exists in motion toward the future or the past. The more present I am, the happier and more content I will be. If I latch onto a feeling, if I say, “Oh, I’m happy now,” and I want to stay happy, then I’m going to drop out of that happiness. Now, suddenly, the mind is moving. It’s trying to attach to something. It’s trying to create a permanent situation out of a temporary situation.
Happiness to me is mainly not suffering, not desiring, not thinking too much about the future or the past, really embracing the present moment and the reality of what is, and the way it is. [4]
If you ever want to have peace in your life, you have to move beyond good and evil.
Nature has no concept of happiness or unhappiness. Nature follows unbroken mathematical laws and a chain of cause and effect from the Big Bang to now. Everything is perfect exactly the way it is. It is only in our particular minds we are unhappy or not happy, and things are perfect or imperfect because of what we desire. [4]
The world just reflects your own feelings back at you. Reality is neutral. Reality has no judgments. To a tree, there is no concept of right or wrong, good or bad. You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences and stimulations (lights, colors, and sounds), and then you die. How you choose to interpret them is up to you—you have that choice.
This is what I mean when I say happiness is a choice. If you believe it’s a choice, you can start working on it. [77]
There are no external forces affecting your emotions—as much as it may feel that way.
I’ve also come to believe in the complete and utter insignificance of the self, and I think that helps a lot. For example, if you thought you were the most important thing in the Universe, then you would have to bend the entire Universe to your will. If you’re the most important thing in the Universe, then how could it not conform to your desires. If it doesn’t conform to your desires, something is wrong.
However, if you view yourself as a bacteria or an amoeba—or if you view all of your works as writing on water or building castles in the sand, then you have no expectation for how life should “actually” be. Life is just the way it is. When you accept that, you have no cause to be happy or unhappy. Those things almost don’t apply.
Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.
What you’re left with in that neutral state is not neutrality. I think people believe neutrality would be a very bland existence. No, this is the existence little children live. If you look at little children, on balance, they’re generally pretty happy because they are really immersed in the environment and the moment, without any thought of how it should be given their personal preferences and desires. I think the neutral state is actually a perfection state. One can be very happy as long as one isn’t too caught up in their own head. [4]
Our lives are a blink of a firefly in the night. You’re just barely here. You have to make the most of every minute, which doesn’t mean you chase some stupid desire for your entire life. What it means is every second you have on this planet is very precious, and it’s your responsibility to make sure you’re happy and interpreting everything in the best possible way. [9]
We think of ourselves as fixed and the world as malleable, but it’s really we who are malleable and the world is largely fixed.
Can practicing meditation help you accept reality?
Yeah. But it’s amazing how little it helps. [laughs] You can be a long-time meditator, but if someone says the wrong thing in the wrong way, you go back to your ego-driven self. It’s almost like you’re lifting one-pound weights, but then somebody drops a huge barbell with a stack of plates on your head.
It’s absolutely better than doing nothing. But when the actual moment of mental or emotional suffering arrives, it’s still never easy. [8] Real happiness only comes as a side-effect of peace. Most of it is going to come from acceptance, not from changing your external environment. [8]
A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control.
I have lowered my identity.
I have lowered the chattering of my mind.
I don’t care about things that don’t really matter.
I don’t get involved in politics.
I don’t hang around unhappy people.
I really value my time on this earth.
I read philosophy.
I meditate.
I hang around with happy people.
And it works.
You can very slowly but steadily and methodically improve your happiness baseline, just like you can improve your fitness. [10]
第二部分 - 幸福
人生的三大要素是财富、健康和幸福。
我们按这个顺序追求它们，但它们的重要性是反过来的。
学习幸福
不要把自己看得太严肃。你只是一个有计划的猴子。
幸福是学来的
十年前，如果你问我有多幸福，我会回避这个问题。我不想谈论它。
在1到10的范围内，我会说是2/10或3/10。也许在最好的日子里是4/10。但我并不重视幸福。
今天，我是9/10。是的，有钱有帮助，但这其实只是一小部分。大部分的幸福来自多年来我学会了认识到自己的幸福是最重要的事，并且通过许多方法去培养它。[10]
也许幸福不是遗传的，甚至不是选择的，而是一种像健身或营养一样可以学习的高度个人化的技能。
我认为，幸福是一件非常变化多端的事情，就像所有伟大的问题一样。当你还是个孩子时，你会去找你妈妈问：“我们死后会发生什么？真的有圣诞老人吗？有神吗？我应该幸福吗？我应该和谁结婚？”这些问题没有轻松的答案，因为没有答案适用于所有人。这些问题最终确实有答案，但它们都是个人化的答案。
对我有效的答案，对你来说可能完全是胡言乱语，反之亦然。对我来说，幸福意味着什么，对你来说可能是完全不同的事情。我认为，探索这些定义非常重要。
对我认识的一些人来说，幸福是一种心流状态。对某些人来说，是一种满足感。对某些人来说，是一种内心的平静。我的定义一直在变化。我一年前给你的答案和现在告诉你的会不同。
今天，我相信幸福实际上是一种默认状态。当你消除生活中缺少某种东西的感觉时，幸福就存在了。
我们是高度批判性的生存和繁衍机器。我们不断地走来走去，想着“我需要这个”或“我需要那个”，困在欲望的网络中。幸福是当没有任何东西缺失的状态。当没有东西缺失时，你的思绪平静下来，不再追溯过去或计划未来。
在这种空缺中，你会有片刻的内在宁静。当你有内在的宁静时，你就满足了，你就幸福了。欢迎你不同意。再说一次，每个人的答案都不同。
人们错误地认为幸福仅仅是关于积极的思想和积极的行动。随着我读得越来越多，学得越来越多，并且越来越多地验证这些东西，我发现每一个积极的思想本质上都包含了一个消极的思想。它是对某种消极事物的对比。《道德经》比我能说得更有艺术性，但它说的都是二元性和对立性。如果我说我很快乐，那意味着我曾经悲伤。如果我说他很有魅力，那意味着有人没有魅力。每一个积极的思想都有一个消极的种子，反之亦然，这也是为什么生活中的许多伟大之处来自于痛苦。你必须先看到消极的东西，才能渴望并欣赏积极的东西。
对我来说，幸福不是关于积极的思想，也不是关于消极的思想，而是关于没有欲望，尤其是对外物的欲望。我的欲望越少，我越能接受现状，我的思绪就越少，因为思想实质上是存在于对未来或过去的向往之中的。我越专注于当下，我就越快乐、越满足。如果我执着于一种感觉，如果我说“哦，我现在很幸福”，而且我想保持这种幸福，那我就会失去这种幸福。现在，突然之间，思绪开始活动了。它试图附着于某物。它试图把一个暂时的情况变成一个永久的情况。
对我来说，幸福主要是不痛苦、不渴望、不去过多地思考未来或过去，真正拥抱当下和现实的样子。[4]
如果你想要在生活中获得平静，你必须超越善恶的对立。
自然界没有幸福或不幸福的概念。自然遵循从大爆炸到现在的不间断的数学法则和因果链。一切都是完美的，正如它应有的样子。只有在我们的特定心灵中，我们才会感到不幸福或幸福，事物才会因为我们的欲望而变得完美或不完美。[4]
世界只是反映你的感受回给你。现实是中性的，现实没有判断。对于一棵树来说，没有对错、好坏的概念。你出生，你经历了一整套感官体验和刺激（光、颜色和声音），然后你死去。你如何选择去解读它们由你决定——这是你的选择。
这就是我说“幸福是一种选择”时的意思。如果你相信这是一种选择，你就可以开始努力实现它。[77]
没有外部力量在影响你的情绪——尽管你可能觉得是这样。
我也开始相信自我的完全和彻底的微不足道，我认为这对幸福有很大的帮助。例如，如果你认为自己是宇宙中最重要的事物，那么你必须把整个宇宙都纳入你的意志之中。如果你是宇宙中最重要的事物，那么它怎么可能不符合你的愿望呢？如果它不符合你的愿望，那就是出了问题。
然而，如果你把自己看作是一个细菌或一个变形虫——或者你把你所有的成就看作是在水上写字或在沙滩上建城堡，那么你就不会对生活“本该如何”抱有任何期望。生活就是它本来的样子。当你接受这一点时，你就没有理由感到幸福或不幸福。那些事情几乎不适用。
幸福是当你消除生活中缺少某种东西的感觉时所存在的状态。
在这种中性状态下，留下的并不是中性。我认为人们认为中性会是一种非常平淡的存在。实际上，这就是小孩子生活的样子。如果你观察小孩子，总体上他们通常都非常快乐，因为他们真的沉浸在环境和当下，没有任何关于它应该如何符合他们个人偏好和欲望的想法。我认为中性状态实际上是一种完美状态。只要一个人不过于沉迷于自己的内心，他就可以非常快乐。[4]
我们的生命就像夜空中萤火虫的一闪而逝。你只是刚好在这里。你必须充分利用每一分钟，但这并不意味着你要用一生去追逐某种愚蠢的欲望。它意味着你在这个星球上的每一秒都非常珍贵，你有责任确保自己幸福并以最好的方式解读一切。[9]
我们认为自己是固定的，世界是可塑的，但其实我们是可塑的，而世界在很大程度上是固定的。
练习冥想能帮助你接受现实吗？
是的，但令人惊讶的是它的帮助是那么的有限。[笑] 你可能是一个长期的冥想者，但如果有人在错误的时间以错误的方式说了某些话，你会回到那个由自我驱动的自己。这几乎就像你在举一磅的哑铃，然后有人往你头上扔了一根带着一堆杠铃片的大杠铃。
这绝对比什么都不做要好。但当真正的心理或情绪上的痛苦来临时，依然不容易。[8] 真正的幸福只有在平和的副产品中到来。大部分的幸福来自于接受，而不是改变你的外部环境。[8]
理性的人可以通过培养对超出自己控制的事情的漠然来找到内心的平静。
我降低了我的自我认同。
我降低了内心的喋喋不休。
我不在乎那些无关紧要的事情。
我不参与政治。
我不和不快乐的人在一起。
我真的珍惜我在地球上的时间。
我读哲学。
我冥想。
我和快乐的人在一起。
而且，这确实有效。
你可以非常缓慢但稳步且有条不紊地提高你的幸福基线，就像你可以提高你的健康水平一样。[10]