Our most basic wish
Our most basic wish is to be happy or to enjoy our lives and to be as free from problems and any form of suffering as possible. To simplify this even further, our most basic wish is to be happy. We will try our best our whole lives to be happy. Let me say that again, we will try our best our entire life to be happy. It will be the one thing we will never stop doing unless we are happy (then we will try to maintain our happiness). Even if we are not consciously sitting under a tree and willing ourselves to be happy we will be doing things, saying things, buying things, and going places with a particular underlying motivation. Our wish to be happy is the one thing that will drive us for the rest of our lives.
Have you ever done something knowing for sure that it will lead to any form of unhappiness? Have you ever willed yourself towards a place or an activity or a person knowing for sure that in the end, you will be more unhappy by doing this? Have you ever consciously broken up with someone knowing that it will actually make you more unhappy in the long term? Have you ever taken a job knowing for sure that this job is going to put you back in life for the long term and take away more of your freedom without any extra reward? Have you ever done something, not as a sacrifice or a compromise but thinking about the bigger picture, knowing that it will hurt you more than give you pleasure. I seriously doubt it!
If we have tried our entire lives to be happy and have spent every waking moment motivated on some level with the wish to be happy, why have we not figured it out yet? Why are we still left with a hangover from an activity, or an unsatisfied feeling in our hearts after achieving the unachievable, or after eating the best meal or after becoming a millionaire or even after having amazing sex with the person of your dreams. No matter what you achieve or what you do, most of us are still left feeling unsatisfied and crave more.
There are many levels of happiness and many ways to enjoy ourselves. From my own experience and from many people that I have met, I can guarantee you that there is a deep, long lasting happiness that many of us completely miss in life.
My challenge to you: Decide today, how happy you are and how happy you want to be. Decide for how long you want to be happy and then start being smart to achieve your most basic and most fundamental wish. How? For you to find out.