Happiness | Raam Dev

Posts Tagged: Happiness

Finding Sufficiency

When we’re poor, sufficiency appears one step away. When we’re rich, sufficiency still appears one step away. No matter what we do, sufficiency remains elusive, always appearing one step ahead.

But that’s an illusion. Sufficiency doesn’t move, we do. If we’re chasing sufficiency, then we don’t understand what we need; we don’t understand our ‘enough’.

What really matters to you? What would it take for you to wake up every morning eager to start the day, content and happy just to be alive? To find sufficiency, you don’t need to do anything. To find sufficiency, you just need to ask yourself, with all honesty, “What is enough?”

The Entire World Is Knocking At My Door

As I flip through one of the four airplane magazines from the seat pocket in front of me, I catch myself staring at a tropical beach photo — you know, the one’s you see in travel magazines that have a dozen or so straw umbrellas hovering over lounge chairs, nestled on a beautiful sandy beach overlooking a blue-green ocean.

Suddenly, I realize that I now have the freedom to go to those places. I no longer have to dream about them like everybody else.

It was an exhilarating feeling of absolute adventure — sort of like what you feel on day one of a two-week vacation, only amplified to encompass an entire lifetime.

I’m writing this post from a WiFi lounge in London’s Heathrow airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Bangalore, India. A few short months ago, I never could have imagined myself being here in London.

Now here I am, sitting among dozens of fellow travelers — some traveling for work, some for pleasure, and perhaps even some nomadic travelers like myself, headed to an unfamiliar place on a mission to rediscover themselves.

The twenty-three hour journey to India is giving me plenty of time to think about the impact this lifestyle change is going to have on my life. Every time I look around the airport and realize that I’m not traveling for work or vacation like most of the people around me, I get this twisted feeling in my stomach when I realize that this freedom is my life now.

The entire world is knocking at my door and nothing can stop me from greeting it.

I’m living the dream I’ve had since I was thirteen.

I’m a world traveling, nomadic explorer!

When you’ve got a calling — when every ounce of your existence is telling you to do something — there comes a point where you can no longer ignore it. I reached that point where I simply couldn’t put this off any longer. Holding it back — holding it all inside — was beginning to destroy me. It felt as though my entire life was being slowly extinguished.

But the transition up to this point wasn’t easy.

I left a secure job with great coworkers, got rid of my only means of transportation, and reduced my physical possessions further than I thought possible. With no travel experience outside the United States, I’m now on my way to the opposite side of the planet toting just a single backpack and the clothes on my back.

The most difficult part of this transition, however, has been the emotional impact its had on those I love. Nobody likes to intentionally inflict pain on others — even if it’s indirect and will result in your own eventual happiness. It still feels wrong.

When I have tough decisions to make — when I’m feeling certain conflicts inside — I don’t resort to emotional decisions. I rely on what my morals and my instincts tell me is right and wrong. Sometimes things work out for the better. Sometimes they don’t. But whatever happens, I always know that my actions were based on decisions that were made by being true to myself; by being honest with myself.

Being honest and true to myself is very important to me.

What good are we as human beings if we cannot even be honest and true to ourselves? If we cannot even trust our own instinct or listen to our inner calling, what right do we have to exist?

There’s only one person who’s going to change your life for the better. There’s only one person who is really going to make you happy. There’s only one person who will make you free.

That person is you.

You cannot rely or depend on anyone but yourself. You have to trust yourself to handle any situation that gets thrown at you. You will handle it. You might make the wrong choices and you might fail miserably, but you’ll handle it. And when you come out the other side, you will have learned something. You will have grown. You will have improved.

You have to be ready to accept failure. You have to accept that you don’t know a damn thing.

The only way you’re going to learn is by failing. Over and over and over. Accept that and suddenly you have no limits. Suddenly there is nothing stopping you from doing what you love. Suddenly the impossible seems doable. Suddenly life has more meaning. Suddenly you are the owner of your happiness.

Travel Update: Be sure to check out The Plan: 6 Months, 3 Countries, and $3,000.

The Passing of my Grandfather

My grandfather passed away in his sleep last Thursday at the age of seventy.

I clearly remember the very last time I saw him. It was three weeks prior to his passing. He shook my hand, as he always did, and asked how I was doing. I only saw him for a brief moment but now that moment is burned into my memory.

The days following his passing were noticeably, and understandably, tough on my mom, grandma, and my aunts and uncles. It was the first time I had seen many of my relatives cry. I was so impressed by my grandmothers strength. At one point, when she started crying into my shoulder, she held back and said “look at me, crying like a little child”.

In life, choose happiness. Reserve your sadness for the afterlife.

A strange feeling arises every now and then when I realize he’s gone. For that brief moment, it doesn’t feel real. Everything, from the wake to the funeral, felt surreal. I couldn’t help but contemplate how one day, myself and all the people present will meet the same fate. Life felt animated, a picturesque moment in a film without a known duration. Thirty years? Ten years? Five months? Three weeks? Six days? One hour?

My other grandfather, on my dad’s side, died when I was about nine years old. I remember going to his wake and being surrounded by people in black suits towering over me, mourning for a reason I didn’t understand and obviously feeling something I didn’t feel. I really didn’t know him that well and my only other memory of him is of when we visited him in the hospital.

You never know what moment may be the very last you’ll see someone, so it’s important to treat every moment as if it were your, or their, last. Living that way makes you appreciate every moment of life, regardless of the situation. When we take life for granted we forget who we really are and how much those we love mean to us.

Death gives us the ultimate reason to celebrate life.

A little over a week ago I wrote about how every single one of us will die one day and why that means we should all choose happiness and growth in life.

Almost every day I remind myself of this fact and each time I do I seem to appreciate life a little bit more. It reminds me that I have no reason to be unhappy; no reason to be angry; no reason to be frustrated; no reason to be unmotivated. It pushes me to take action and do the things I’ve always wanted to do. It reminds me to appreciate family, friends, and most of all, myself. It reminds me that, as my Uncle Dan always says, “your health is your wealth” and that all the money and fame in the world is pointless if I don’t have my health.

“Your health is your wealth.”

Take care of your health.

Choose Happiness and Growth

There are few things in life that are absolutely, one hundred percent, guaranteed. Death is one of those things. Take a moment to think about that. Every single one of us, no matter how smart, rich, or popular, every single one of us is going to die. The flesh and organic matter that is this body is guaranteed to one day cease to exist.

It’s not just us either. Everything ends one day. Even this Earth will be gone, most likely consumed by the sun when it expands to a red giant billions of years from now. The entire universe, with all the planets, stars, and galaxies, will also be gone one day. And while it will probably happen a lot sooner, we can be certain that any memory of our existence will also gone when the universe goes.

The bottom line is this: You can be guaranteed that every single thing you see, think, do, or create, every single person you know or have heard of, every single place you’ve been or know about, will one day cease to exist.

So what does all this have to do with happiness? Well, if we can be assured that we’ll all die one day and that everything will eventually be gone, then it’s safe to assume that the only reason for existence is to experience life while it’s here.

So what’s life? Well, we know that death most often brings sadness and is associated with the ending of progression, so this would mean that life, being the polar opposite of death, should be associated with happiness and growth. I propose that choosing anything less than happiness and growth in our life is associating ourselves with death and thereby ignoring life.

This should give no one any reason to accept anything in life that constrains their own happiness or growth (whether mental, physical, or spiritual) or enables the constraint of others’ happiness or growth. To do either of these is to disregard, neglect, and eschew life itself.

Life is our chance. It’s our small window of opportunity. Our situations may vary and our circumstances may differ, but we all have the ability to make a conscious, day-to-day decision to strive for happiness over sadness; for growth over stagnation; for life over death.

Choose happiness. When something upsets you — the car in front of you cuts you off; you feel yourself getting agitated; someone is rude or unpleasant towards you; things just don’t seem to be going your way — make a conscious decision to let it go and choose happiness. Don’t let your circumstances become an excuse not to be happy. You’re alive right now. That’s the only reason you need to be happy.

Choose growth. Do you feel as though you’re a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday? If you don’t, then it’s time to make a conscious decision to do something to improve yourself every single day. Stop watching so much TV. Stop oversleeping. Do something every day to improve your health (both mental and physical!). Small changes over a long period always equate to a greater overall change. As long as you’re living, you should be growing. Stagnation is for death.

It’s your life! What will you do with it?

The more we have, the less we appreciate

This post started as a comment in response to Colin Wright’s post on Your Money or Your Life. The comment grew long enough that I decided to turn my response into this post.

There are two things that cannot be bought with money: Time and Happiness.

Sure, you might be able to “buy” someone’s time, but you cannot buy back time that has already been spent! Therefore time is an invaluable resource. Likewise, happiness cannot be bought. You can buy things that you think will make you happy, but the happiness itself will always come from somewhere inside. You really don’t need anything external to obtain it!

I find it amazing how many people go through their entire lives thinking that more money equals more happiness. They get stressed and unhappy due to the absence of money and naturally they assume having more of it will reverse the effect. In reality, what’s making them unhappy are the choices they’ve made; the little luxuries they’ve decided are absolutely necessary to live their life (cable TV, cars, expensive foods, tobacco, alcohol, big house, movies, etc.).

All of those things provide a very temporary and unsustainable happiness. As a result, their life becomes a snowballing roller coaster of wanting more and more. The more they want, the more money they convince themselves they need. The more money they need, the more stressed out and unhappy they become. Where does it end? Sadly, for most people it ends with death.

I come from a middle class family. While my perspective is not the same as someone from a lower class family, I can see that the same patterns emerge from one class to the next. The things everyone truly cares about are pretty much the same. One persons’ poor, is another persons’ rich. The family we’re born into often defines the living standard by which we judge and perceive the world around us. But how different is the rich person from the poor person? Do they experience a different kind of happiness? A different kind of sadness? A different kind of love? How about hunger? Do rich and poor people get different feelings from laughter?

I speak as a single guy, with very few true responsibilities. I have no kids to take care of or family that needs to be looked after. I understand that my perspective and ideas may not apply to other situations. Nevertheless, there are many very happy families living with far less than the average family in the United States. Do they experience a lower quality happiness? When their kids laugh and play together, do they experience a lower quality joy? True happiness isn’t something that can be bought with money.

We’re all human. If we really want to be happy we need to look deep inside ourselves for happiness. It’s there. Everyone has it. No one person has less happiness-making-capacity than the next. It’s really tough to forget that all the material stuff around us, regardless of how much importance we place on it, really has nothing to do with our true happiness. That’s a tough pill to swallow when some of us work day and night to afford the stuff.

So what better way to find the true source of happiness than to strip yourself of all things material? I grew up in a relatively rural area, a small town in New Hampshire with a forest and a lake for a backyard. I was home schooled and spent most of my childhood outside exploring nature. When friends would visit for the first time, their impression would always be one of amazement. I never understood that. At least not until I moved away and lived in the city for two years. When I visited my parents on the weekends, I started to feel something I never felt before. Visiting my parents house, the very place I grew up, started to feel like going on vacation! I felt so much appreciation for the place.

That experience made me realize how the little things we take for granted can spoil our entire life. Have you ever come back from a camping trip and felt a little more grateful for having a shower? How about when the power comes back on after being out for more than a day? We should feel that way every minute of every day for the life we have. For working legs, eyes, hands, ears, and mouth. We should be grateful for every second that passes; for each beat of our heart, and each breath we take.

Take a deep breath of air right now. Close your eyes and fill your chest with life-giving air. Appreciate it a little more than you did the previous breath. Do it right now. I’ll wait.

Didn’t that feel good? You take an average of 20,000 of those every single day. That’s a lot to be grateful for!

I’ve decided to get rid of nearly all my material possessions because I know it will make me feel more grateful. I know it will enable me to see more clearly. We humans (yes, even modern ones) don’t need very much to survive. Food and shelter. That’s it. Most of us are fortunate enough to have working feet to help us travel, yet so few of us use them for real commuting. What about money? When we remove all modern-day comforts and really drill down to the bare necessities, we don’t need very much of that either. Of course how much money will differ depending on where we’re living, but most of us live way above necessity.

Find something you own that you haven’t used in over a month. Now find someone that you can give it to. Don’t worry about how much it cost you or why you originally bought it. You haven’t used it in over a month and you most likely won’t use it for the foreseeable future. Just find something and give it away. By giving it away you’ll not only build good karma, you’ll also feel a little more appreciative of all the stuff you currently have.

The more we have, the less we appreciate. The less we have, the more we appreciate. Do you want to appreciate more or less of life?