How I Chased Happiness in All the Wrong Ways for Years

I finally figured out what was missing and it wasn’t what I expected.

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

I’ve had it wrong my entire life.

Until early this year, I had no idea where true happiness came from.

Entangled in societal expectations and personal experiences, I took a series of wrong approaches to finding happiness. In fact, they were so wrong that they caused a lot of desperation, almost making me believe the happy train had already left the station without me on board.

Thankfully, this crazy conductor called Life gave me a sign where to look for my ticket, and I found it in the most unexpected place.

But before I go into that, I have to start at the beginning.

The stupidest way to chase happiness

Maybe it’s my subconscious white and German privilege; perhaps it’s just naivety.

But until my early 20s, I was convinced happiness would come my way.

Like so many around the world, I was convinced I could achieve lasting happiness by working and buying my way through life. I was sure I could finally be happy if I just had this wife, family, car, and house.

Because then, I’d tell myself, no, feel, that I had made it.

Luckily, I relatively quickly realized this wasn’t the case. Buried under the societal expectations of an exhausting 9-to-5 office job and shocked by the stories of Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields-Milburn, aka The Minimalists, I woke up for the very first time in my life—and I woke up from a nightmare.

Within weeks, my complete attitude toward work changed.

What had inspired and motivated my colleagues to spend decades hacking away at an outdated PC while optimizing stupid business processes couldn’t catch me anymore, no matter the money.

And I won’t lie: it wasn’t a nice revelation. It left a huge hole inside of me.

One that I quickly filled with some other artificial goal, naive as I was.

While I no longer believed that working hard and making it in a corporate career would help me, I suddenly had a new agenda: self-improvement.

I was sure I would finally be happy if I only got the circumstances right.

And this decision would keep haunting me until the present day.

On the never-ending hunt for the perfect circumstances

Thanks to first a declining business and then declining savings, too, the last two years have been a huge challenge for me personally. Gradually, I discovered multiple layers within myself that I first didn’t know existed, and second, they scared me.

I learned how I held on to outdated thought patterns, whose once-proven helpfulness had smothered away into destructivity.

Life has outlived my mindset. And it was time for a change.

But as so often in life, this change would come unexpectedly.

It wasn’t through a new job, a huge breakup, or burying myself in busy work that I declared essential. No, this time, it was through an unusual amount of stillness, one might call stillstand.

Suddenly, life had paused.

And I found myself within an inner whirlwind of emotions, throwing me from one extreme to the other. I fell into the instant gratification trap without any resistance from my side. I got hooked on the dopamine bursts of shorts, YouTube, and series. After consuming too much of it for a while, one of the latter was Shantaram. It reminded me of how I usually think everything happens for a reason.

Although I wasn’t stuck in a Bombay slum in the 1980s, I could relate strongly to being constantly on the run from somewhere to somewhere else. And contrary to all my expectations, I discovered a profound interest in spirituality, awareness, and, yes, even quantum physics — realizing how it all ties together.

And even crazier: how I first turned to self-improvement and then writing as a means to an end for repeating the same mistake I thought I had overcome at the beginning of my 20s.

Perfecting the circumstances to finally allow myself to be happy.

Yes, it’s what I did. What I kept doing for the last ten years of my life.

Although I already knew it wouldn’t work.

But clever as I thought I was, I relabeled the whole game.

Instead of money, I was chasing freedom.

Because then, I’d be finally happy, right?

Wrong, once again. And here’s why.

What if we get the order wrong?

Imagine you’re sitting on Canggu Beach, Bali, looking at the sunset. The sky’s clear, except for a few stretched and high-flying clouds. The burning orange of the sun paints the sky yellow and pinkish. You feel the coolness of a beginning starry night on your skin, hold a cool Bintang in your hand, and are in awe of what nature has imagined for you this evening.

This sounds great, right? Let me tell you, it is.

But what if the amazing feeling isn’t about the sunset or the soothing sound of waves in front of you? What if it isn’t about the fact that you’re on vacation? Or that you’re drinking a cool Bintang?

What if it’s about the simple fact that you’re present?

“Of course! It’s beautiful!” you might exclaim. Rightfully so.

But what if we get the order completely wrong?

Think about it. Most believe:

1. Things have to be XYZ before we

2. can be fully present.

3. And we have to be fully present to enjoy a moment.

Think having sex, lying on fresh bedsheets, jumping into the hot tub on a cold day, or sipping on a cool lemonade on a hot day.

But what if it’s wrong?

What if it was never about things being a certain way but us being a certain way? And this certain way is being present. What if the order is actually:

1. We CHOOSE to be fully present and

2. we enjoy ANY situation?

“Any?” You might ask. Yes, any.

Because what are we doing when we go on vacation?

We signal ourselves that there’s nothing to worry about because we’re free.

But it’s just a signal.

It’s a blank check signed by ourselves to allow us to do whatever the eff we want. And guess what? We can sign this blank check more often.

I’m not talking about neglecting your daily life, giving your child away, and becoming a hobo. Nope. Because remember: even on vacation, you shrugged things off when they went sideways. You accepted what came your way.

After all, everything was easy, right?

That’s why I’m talking about allowing ourselves to feel the freedom of the present moment. Or, to put it short, to feel alive.

Because that’s all it is when we talk about “being alive.”

Awareness of the present moment is feeling alive.

And it’s the biggest present you can ever make yourself.

It’s what I’ve learned after almost thirty years of my life.

Happiness is indeed a choice.

It starts with:

1. Allowing ourselves to be present

2. Enjoying the present (no matter how it looks like).

So, no matter if you’re looking at a sunset or doing the dishes.

Allow yourself to be present. And enjoy the present to feel happy.

That’s what I’m trying to do more in these wild times. And every time I slightly succeed, I’m amazed at how easy most things become.

Because we already have all we need. We just need to realize it.

The present is our biggest present.
Yes, pun intended.

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Are you allowing yourself to feel present?

Let me know in the comments.