Happiness - the struggle is real
And it doesn’t get any better than that. Or so you think!
Every day is a struggle: you get up, you go to work, you come home, you work out, you cook, you laze, you sleep and start all over again the next morning. Whilst your mammal brain, as academics of the mind call it, which sits just beneath your consciousness brain (but we’ll call it ‘dog brain’ as a simple visual aid), is in a state of familiar paralysis, your eyes begin to wander, always in search of something, just that one thing that takes you out of that struggle that is so real it’s almost killing you.
The problem with happiness today is that the actual meaning behind the word has been drowned out in a garbage pile of niche affirmations, positive feel-good suggestions and novice advice that has failed to resolve your problem when you need it most. Suddenly, there is a bombardment of philosophies that all proclaim, at the sound of a loud trumpet, in unison: familiarity.
Everywhere you go, everywhere you look online, all adds up to that one word: familiarity, go for it! Make your dog brain believe in the hocus-pocus of that magical, familiar advice; the suggestions and beliefs that will keep you feeling safe; safety in numbers; safety in biased opinions; being familiar with everyone and everything around you; making you feel safe, easy and that you belong to some squad, without hesitation, without question.
The problem with that happiness belief is that we are desperately clinging on for dear life; we instinctively allow our dog brains to make us ‘feel good’ by capturing, documenting and storing every moment we get and making it ‘blessed’ and pleasurable, like it’s the end of life — that very pain that you’ve been struggling to overcome for way too long.
Yes, the struggle is real. It’s a hell of lot of hard work to capture, document and store every single moment that is highlighted by your camera lens, on your iPhones. It is becoming more of an apparent threat to your mind to acquire the happiness you’ve been shown and told about, over and over again by all those living-on-a-prayer miracle beliefs to uplift and disguise that ‘resting bitch face’ accompanied with that good old automatic smile as a desperado measure to be liked. Liked hugely, enormously, like a crash-hot celebrity, until that one disagreement, no matter how small or insignificant, and that cutesy smile is wiped off your face and out comes your resting bitch face, shining the golden hidden halo of you to the world.
And your Walt Disney world collapses on you like a giant tsunami.
What happened? What’s happening to me? You may ask. Whilst you get all sensitive about it, and this is where feeling low crashes in, their pumped-up praises, fuelled by their social media outlets to get their daily ego boost, come crashing down like an on-coming train wreck, but your ego didn’t see it coming.
Now, some of you are wondering, why is happiness a struggle that is so real and depressing when it’s hard enough to face the harsh reality after transforming from being a cool, poptard teenager to a hesitating, procrastinating adult who still believes their ‘if you put your mind to it, you can do anything’ false philosophy (that gen X motto that has praised their dog brains way too much until praise in itself has become one giant drug addiction).
Y geners are correct: happiness is a struggle for them as they have never, ever been told the true definition of the very word, yet alone why they’re born in the first place. Gen y’s and z’s struggle everyday with their dog brain, justifying their ego as an aid, perpetuated by a drug addiction given to them from the day they were born; a licence to inflate their egos to prompt a dependency craving and thirst for ‘information’ without ever questioning themselves for one brief moment away from their drug-fuel device called ‘the mobile phone’, and just standing back and observing what happened.
The reality is this: the propaganda of the definition of happiness is based on familiar beliefs like ‘being in the moment’ and the good old ‘pleasure and meaning’ predicament that has been cruelly drummed into our dog brains for years on end, and no longer works for us or anyone! The man, or ‘big brother’ as Orson Wells once called him, the head honcho of the human race, has told you to ‘follow your gut’. How’s that been working for ya!?
Truth is, it hasn’t, and ‘following your gut’ or instinct has led you down the wrong path of familiarity that breeds safety and dependency — down the rabbit hole of misery. Yes, the struggle is real in obtaining happiness, so how do you resolve that? It’s more than just redesigning the wheel. You’ve always wanted an experience, right? An experience to tell you exactly what you want to hear. An enlightened mind.
We all want that, right?
Instinct sucks! Instincts drive your ego down the path of misery that leads to anxiety, depression, procrastination, hesitation, self doubt, low confidence and criticism, prompting you to make bad choices and send you down the path that will make you a total loser.
Follow your instincts? Epic fail!
I feel a tad sorry for the gen y’s and z’s, as they have been totally ill-prepared for the major life lessons for earning happiness, as their parents just followed their instincts according to what ‘the man’ told them and have become the epic failure of their unfortunate success. All that gen y’s and z’s wanted was a role model, an example they could look up to, to prepare them into adulthood so they didn’t suddenly go off the rails and be totally dependent on the mobile phone for constant praise to fuel their egos.
As I said earlier, praise is like a drug addiction and it’s not the cure for rising above it; the struggle is all too real and it can completely discourage people from ever attempting to heal their habit.
The struggle to obtain happiness doesn’t require ego adrenaline feats to prove ‘you are worthy of something’.
Seriously, if you ever dreamed of a path, a world without emotional baggage, a life of real certainty, there is a way and I’m here to show you just that.
So, umming and arring aside, it’s time for you, yes you, to go on a journey. An experience you’ve never seen before. A mind journey where, for first time ever, you’ll explore and discover that there is more than one brain operating inside your head. Surprise! Surprise!
Being reliant on the solid support structure of social media, making your mobile phone your substitute brain, has fuelled emotional baggage to the point of grin-and-bare-it addiction to be liked — praise will never end the struggle. You need to explore and know one thing: both of your brains — yes plural, not singular!
This experience will help you stop being so familiar with the one brain you’ve been so dependent on all your life. It’s time to witness who’s in charge in your head and what to do about it.
This experience will be the breath of fresh air that will open your eyes to see a world that your brain can witness — that epiphany moment. Once you’ve seen it, there’s no turning back.
Written by Lea Colleens.
She is the author of a self help book called 'Areyouhappy?' a guidebook that will set the stage for your new journey into earning Happiness. You can follow her on her website at www.areyouhappy.co. You can also follow her on Steemit, Facebook and Minds.