The Journey to Happiness

So many self-help books, so little time…  If I had a dollar for every “get happy” or “get rich” or “get organized” self-help book out there, I would be quite wealthy.  I have certainly read my share and jumped on plenty of band wagons to be all too familiar with the seemingly redundant content promising to assist in the journey to happiness.  Not that there is anything wrong with such messages, albeit duplicative, as long as they foster positivity and well-being.  That said, I have also noticed a pattern to this category of literature.  If I had to guess, I would say that most of the authors (usually dynamic in their own right) stumbled across a method or devised a formula that caused a significant and positive change in their lives.  So, they packaged it up with a catchy marketing tag line and wrote a book about it.  Makes sense.  If it worked for them, it might work for others, right? But can we really find happiness after addiction?

At the risk of sounding skeptical, if the first “16 second rule” actually worked, there would never be a need for another book.  In other words, there are literally millions of self-help books proclaiming to have the secret of how to obtain true happiness – if we just follow these simple rules… Yet, here we are.  Like starting a new diet, all gung-ho in the beginning but inevitably ending up back where we started.  Do they all really miss the mark on how to achieve self-love?  Or does the audience fail to follow their instructions?  Or is it more likely that the individuality of each and every human is so intricate that it is impossible to create a “one-size-fits-all” road map to happiness?

Defining Your Happiness

It seems that if you interviewed a group of people who consider themselves REALLY happy and asked how they got there, you would not get a single duplicate answer.  You see, besides failing to adequately provide the “application” of their rule or message or strategy (more on that later), they neglect to account for an individual’s unique circumstances.  What works for one may certainly help others in some way, but it is extremely unlikely that it will be the epiphany that changes their lives.

Conquering an addiction can be likened to finding true happiness in that, at the end of the day, it has to come from within.  You can implement the suggestions of others all day long, but it will never accomplish the intended result until you figure out what works for you.  Once this fact is accepted, the journey back to yourself can finally begin.  This is the most important and most challenging journey that you will ever undertake – it is also the most rewarding.  So, continue reading all the self-help books you can stomach!  Just remember the suggestions will only be one small piece of your journey to self-actualization.