A Simple "Secret" for Happiness

- A Piece of Ancient wisdom

Consider this ancient Chinese idiom, 知足常樂 - He who knows to be content knows happiness.

Or in another way of translating it: “Appreciating what you have keeps happiness in your life."

This tells much about a "secret": Appreciating what you have, instead of desiring what you don't, is one simple way of finding happiness.

This is because the latter could be a source of much unhappiness - dissatisfaction, envying, self-doubt, or even misery, especially in today's materialistic society.

To be fair, desiring what we don't have in and of itself might not necessarily be a bad thing.

It could be a positive motivation for individuals to strive for a better life, and for the society to produce more and to invent new things.

When we don't have enough for basic needs, desiring more to cover these needs is our fundamental instinct for survival.

Above basic needs, desiring reasonable comforts is also, just reasonable.

For example, in modern society, although air conditioning is not strictly for basic needs or survival, but it helps us escape extreme temperatures that is unhealthy and uncomfortable. So desiring air conditioning in the hot summer or the frozen winter is obviously reasonable.

Desiring what we don't have beyond basic needs and reasonable comforts might still not be a problem for happiness, until it turns into negative feelings when not fulfilled.

That's when (what I call) “unnecessary unhappiness” kicks in:

• We feel left behind when our cousins have bigger houses or fancier cars than ours'

• We feel deprived when a friend can shop more freely with a fuller wallet

• We feel lacking for not being able to afford for our kids a trendy device they desire or (more legitimately) the best education their aptitude qualifies them

• …….

• Particularly, if the cousins or friend or kids’ friends…show theirs off to us, or our kids (or parents, or…) are disappointed about us, we might feel embarrassed, belittled, or inadequate as a member of the society.…

• Thus the dissatisfaction, envying, feeling of incompetency, sadness, or even misery.

In all those noises, we too often forget to appreciate that we already (if so do) have enough for our basic needs and reasonable comforts (and in many cases more than that).

We forget that having those should keep us fundamentally happy.

We let the “unnecessary unhappiness” from wanting more drive away our fundamental happiness, leaving us unhappy.

Material satisfaction above basic needs and reasonable comforts can be seen as the icing on a cake.

The problem of the unhappiness from not having the icing is not that the icing isn't a good thing.

Or it might not be good for “health”, with excessive consumption of “sugar”, or for environmental health in terms of material resources use, but those are separate issues.

The problem here is that we forget to be happy for having the cake itself already.

We let the "no icing" unhappiness take over us.

That’s why the ancient wisdom emphasized on appreciating what we have.

Our consumerism system is all too happy to profit from our such unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

It tries all its might to promote a culture in which competing to get advanced materially becomes the fervent life-long goal for so many!

While that consumes our lives, the promoters enrich themselves.

In a Well-being Society, people will understand this.

They will have long learned not to let material desires make them unhappy.

Beyond fulfilling basic needs and reasonable comforts, they will spend little efforts in pursuing material rich as their goals.

Instead, they will focus on pursuing internal enrichment and other aspects of personal, family, and community wellbeing, and the wellbeing of the society.

They will seek material resources only when NECESSARY for supporting these well-being goals.

As productivity continues increasing from technology advancement, in our future, fulfilling basic needs and reasonable comforts will become a non-issue.

Those will all be met for us all, with minimal efforts by most individuals.

However, if left untamed, our desires for more and more material satisfaction could be insatiable, no matter how much we have.

One day you might hear someone crying bitterly,

“So sad I can’t afford the newest fanciest model of a private space-shuttle to the Mars!!”.

And the dissatisfaction, envying, sadness and misery, etc. (for not having as much as some other members of the society have) will persist.

Then, instead of happy people enjoying all the advancements, we would still have a society full of unnecessarily unhappy people….

That is why it is important to explore and promote the transformation of our society toward the Well-being Society.

Our society will not automatically transform just because productivity one day having advanced to provide us sufficiently - There will always be others who have more….

It firstly requires a societal-wide transformation of mindset - from the insatiable material desires to holding well-being in higher esteem than wealth.

So, join us to explore, and promote, such a transformation!!