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32 Principles That Lead To Happiness Use This Book For Continual Evolution The Key To Effective Problem Solving
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The Chemistry Of HappinessMany people go through life seeking the chemistry of happiness rather than true happiness. What do I mean? Well, the Economic Mindset causes us to look at the transactional and more superficial layers of life. Therefore when we look at happiness we have oversimplified its causes. In life, every event, thought, word and occurrence has many layers. Happiness is no different. At its root happiness is purely the uninhibited and undistorted experience of life. At the physical level happiness is simply a bio-chemical mix. Just as we can turn pain into numbness with anaesthetics, we can create the sensation of happiness by changing the chemistry of our brain. Or we can think happy thoughts, which causes our brain to produce the same chemistry. So the sensation of happiness can be observed and described in neuro-chemical terms. Or the neuro-chemistry can be seen as a consequence of happiness. Even though we may not have understood the precise blend of hormones and chemicals, we have noticed that certain occurrences have caused us to feel happier. These occurrences are enhancers of, rather than the cause of long term happiness. Though because of our Economic Mindset and our limited understanding we focused on the surface layer of enhancers, rather than the underlying layer that created the surface. So we mistakenly decided that the sensation of being happy is happiness. Generation after generation has sought the chemistry of happiness operating on the misunderstanding that if we created more sensations of happiness we would be happier. But it is a mistake to base happiness on enhancers of life, because by their nature the high must be followed by a low. Happiness is the uninhibited enjoyment of life. The true expression of your uniqueness. Not a momentary feeling. This misunderstanding created two interpretations of happiness. These are Hedonic and Eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic happiness is about pleasure. Seeking pleasure now at the expense of longer term happiness. Eudaimonic happiness is about seeking a long term stability and security without being subject to the whims of chemical ups and downs. Pleasure Addiction Pleasure addiction is rampant because our society operates on an Economic Mindset. Pleasure gives us the chemical high of the sensation of happiness. It is easy to produce, unfortunately a necessary downside is that after the high comes the low. Pleasure is unsustainable as it is based on a neuro-chemical reaction, which must then stabilize. This creates an addictive cycle and a need for continual excitement.
Drug addicts or alcoholics, are treated as sick, because of the outcomes of their addiction, yet look around and you will see…
Take someone who deals with her stress by ‘retail therapy’. It doesn’t matter what she buys, she has a wardrobe full of clothes that she hardly ever wears. When the pressure of work hits her, when she rows with her partner the best way she knows of picking herself up is through retail therapy. Because this addiction is not obviously harmful, nobody notices the damage it is doing. If she was shooting up heroin or drinking daily her friends wouldn’t go get her a fix or a bottle. Yet because it seems harmless her friends will tell her you’ve had a hard time, you deserve a treat. An addiction is an addiction, whether it is drugs, work, drink, a television program or a pleasure addiction. The only difference is in intensity. The more intense the addiction… the more the more it affects the addict… the quicker the person cottons on. A junkie learns quickly that he must overcome the drugs or it will overcome him. The television addict spends her life in front of the television, then on her deathbed regrets the opportunities she has missed. Everyone knows drugs and alcohol can damage your body. Yet we do not recognize the damage less toxic addictions do to us. Physically they cause the same up and down chemical effect. This leaves waste chemicals and uses up nutrients, likely to create deficiencies and imbalances. The difference between an intense addiction and a extreme mild one is that the drug addict can go through the same cycle in a couple of years, where the mild socially acceptable addict may never even recognize it. Mild addictions trap us in the myth of hedonic happiness. This prevents us from finding and knowing who we really are. They distract us from the emptiness inside. And so we may never overcome the emptiness of not knowing who we are. As a direct result we cannot truly connect with others, so our relationships suffer. The shopping addict has to keep her financial predicament a secret from her partner. This creates a balloon between them and starts to build a distance between them. There are hundreds of things which people are addicted to that are admired because they support society. Yet the underlying dynamic is the same as the drug addict. The workaholic is held up as a model to ‘slackers’ who want a life outside work, yet his children at home pine for a Dad who cares about them. We love pleasure because it supports our illusion of the economic mindset. It makes us rich, provides short fixes of pleasure and most importantly distracts us from our problems. But it is a trap. Read on to find out why the truth will set you free.
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