The happiness of pursuit

I feel like in today’s day and age we have learned to crave comfort and easily attainable things. Best case scenario is everything we want comes easily to us and no ‘hard work’ is required in order to reach a certain goal. We live in what we call abundance and modern consumerism has reached a point where, in our privileged part of the world, everything we want is attainable given the right circumstances. We always want to be stronger, faster and better, especially in our careers, which seem to be taking up larger and larger amounts of our time and energy. In this we strive to always chase after a certain goal and try to reach it with the least amount of effort required. But as soon as we do, we chase after the next one and the next one and the next one because what we are truly chasing is not the goal itself, but that delicious hit of dopamine associated with reaching it. We don’t realise, that chasing after that dopamine hit will never truly be satisfying. Happiness, like every other sensation, is always temporary. True happiness lies in learning to find joy in the difficult tasks, to find comfort in stepping out of your comfort zone because real growth and fulfilment happens outside of it.

We need to understand that a shift in mindset, a change in perspective, is necessary in order to live a happier and more fulfilled life. We need to learn to be more comfortable with being uncomfortable in the pursuit of happiness.

So I ask you:

-       What is one thing you can do today that takes you outside your comfort zone even just a little bit?

-       Can you identify one area in your life where you can break free from the restraints you’ve put on yourself?

-       Write down three ways you can challenge yourself to feel a little more uncomfortable.