‘My little happiness’ are the small moments of happiness in our lives that create abundance and joy within us. These moments could comprise laughter, interactions, coincidence, or the simple act of observing life. But what do these ‘my little happiness’ moments relate to creating a rich life? What is a rich life, and what does it mean to create it?
What do I mean by a rich life?
A rich life is not limited to money or materialism. Although they hold a place in the fulfilment of our lives, in isolation, they won’t bring the wholesome happiness that we need.
For wholesome happiness, I believe life needs to be all-encompassing. So a rich life could include mental peace, financial stability, loving relationships or family life, good health and a greater purpose that satisfies our soul. That is a rich life of prosperity and abundance in all the pillars of your life. And as we want complete happiness in our lives, we keep chasing it in each of these pillars.
But what do we get when we chase this rich life?
The paradox: The chase for a rich life creates emptiness
As you chase a rich life, do you feel fulfilled? Have you tasted the wholesomeness of complete happiness? Do you feel full? I do not. And I guess most of us do not feel that too.
But why is that?
Let’s have a look at the term – Chasing rich life.
Chase: We want to live an abundant and rich life. We want it, which means we do not have it right now. Thus a chase or a want depicts an unfulfilled life. It indicates a lack, telling us we are not enough, which is why we chase it. The more we try to fulfil ourselves by pursuing a rich life, the more empty we feel by indicating to ourselves, ‘I am unfulfilled’ right now. We become the opposite of what we want.
Life: What is life? Is it something that will happen to us? Is it something that already happened? Life is right now. The rest are just memories (past) or predictions (future). Your life is this moment. This singular space of time when you are reading this line in this article. And now that moment is gone, and your life right now is you reading this new line. So when you are chasing a rich life, you are creating a poor life right now. By believing you will be happy after the culmination of this chase, you convince yourself that you are unhappy right now. So, for most of our lives, we are part of a race where the emptiness of the non-fulfilment remains with us.
Another aspect of this chase is how it adversely affects your chances of achieving the rich life you want. As you constantly believe the lack of a rich life, which is why you are chasing one, it makes you unhappy. Have you tried to work for your dreams while being in this state of lack? Do you believe you can be good at what you want to do when frustrated or depressed? Would you even want to begin? Maybe you procrastinate because of this feeling of non-fulfilment while you keep falsely blaming yourself for not being serious. And this self-blaming tendency puts you further down the rabbit hole of feeling worse and worse from which you cannot escape.
So the dream of your rich life keeps getting further away.
[So then, what is your solution, Mr. Author? Do we stop and abandon all hope and never try to chase our dreams?]
No. Because I believe there’s a better way.
A way to effectively chase a rich life while being happy doing so. By noticing what I call ‘my little happiness’ moments.
What is ‘my little happiness’?
‘My little happiness’ are little moments of joy in our lives. By definition, these are little moments that we might easily overlook.
What could be some examples of ‘my little happiness’?
Finding the elevator waiting for you.
Forgetting the umbrella on a rainy day, but as you have to head out, the rain stops. You then smell the fragrance of the freshly rained ground as you go outside.
The heartfelt gratitude from someone who you helped without any motive.
The warmth of the sun on a winter day. Or a cool breeze during summer.
A free weekend without any personal chores or office work.
The sound of the wave crashing on the shores.
The loving presence of someone who makes you comfortable.
The warmth of a hot cup of tea in your palms on a cold weekend morning.
Receiving an acknowledgement for your contribution to an initiative.
The taste of water after being thirsty for quite some time.
Someone giving you what you need without you even asking for it.
These ‘my little happiness’ moments happen to us every day. Over the grand scheme of things, these moments seem insignificant. But noticing and acknowledging them can not only keep us happy while we chase a rich life, but also help us create it.
Why do we need ‘my little happiness’ to create a rich life?
As we saw the chase for a rich life has a lot of obstacles. It also signifies a lack of it to our subconscious, that we are not enough. And so we need to fill this void. It creates an emptiness in the present moment in the anticipation of a good life in the future. But this present moment is the real life that we are living. It’s not that we do not achieve anything in the chase. We do. But we also keep pushing away our goal of creating a rich life, thus solidifying our emptiness.
And as this emptiness strengthens, it hampers our ability to create a rich life by building negative emotions which obstruct our ability to put in the effort.
My little happiness: The upward spiral of creating happiness right now
‘My little happiness’ is a simple technique to create happiness in this present moment. Not tomorrow or a week from now, but today. Many little moments of joy happen every day in our lives. It is just a matter of learning how to notice them. More of it later in the article.
Our minds are attracted to thoughts and situations that are negative. Although the negative experiences might be a few, indulging in these thoughts is a default state of mind. So, it can create a false mental picture of our lives. Sometimes it can lead to a bleak perspective that makes our life seem a horrible mess compared to others’ lives.
Creating a habit of noticing ‘My little happiness’ moments can help the mind focus on the good moments of our lives. It swings the balance back to the joyful moments and leads to a sense of abundance. A feeling of fulfilment that our life is abundant with great moments.
And the more you consciously practice noticing them, the better it makes you feel. And as you feel happier, you can easily find more moments of joy. When you are in a great mood, do you notice how everything seems to go just right for you? Or even if some things do not go your way, do you realise how you still end up finding something that was good?
Yeah, that is what I am talking about.
And as it becomes easier to notice the ‘my little happiness’ moments, the number of our little moments of happiness increases. You begin observing the simple ones too, which you would have taken for granted. And as this happens, your mind fills with abundance.
And then, you begin noticing more moments of joy!
You are now in an upward spiral. With a little conscious practice, you can get sucked into the feelings of abundance in the present moment.
This is how you can create happiness right now through ‘My little happiness’ moments.
My little happiness: Creating a rich life
We often underestimate the importance of how we feel towards our ability to be productive or do anything. The more we struggle, fall, procrastinate, make mistakes, be lazy or are afraid to initiate, the more we make ourselves feel shitty.
A mind that is frustrated, angry or outright depressed will function at an abysmally low output if you even feel like doing anything. Or maybe you work on auto-pilot, going about your day doing the bare minimum of everything. The concoction of all the negative emotions we keep within ourselves is one of the biggest obstacles to our efforts to create a rich life.
Here’s where the technique of ‘my little happiness’ can come to the rescue. This technique creates an upward spiral of happiness in the present moment. The more abundant you feel, the better is your mood. And as you feel better, you are open to new opportunities that come by, you are better at even noticing these opportunities, you are willing to take initiatives, or you begin and continue doing something that you have only been planning for a long time.
How we feel affects the quality of our life right now and our ability to put in the effort to create the abundant and rich life we aspire to have. The simple technique of noticing the joyful moments of happiness can help us feel great and equip us better in our endeavour of a rich life. Be it financial stability, loving relationships or family life, good health or mental peace, or all of it, the ‘my little happiness’ method can help create our best version, so we can pursue it all while being happy.
How to use the ‘my little happiness’ technique to create a rich life?
Seven minutes every day. That’s all the effort that this simple technique needs from you. Let’s see how we can effectively implement it.
Step 1: Being attentive to your senses
The first step of ‘my little happiness’ is to notice the inputs of our senses. Sounds simple? I mean, when do we not listen, smell, feel, taste or see things? That is practically all the time, right?
But do we really notice them? Or are we absorbed in our thoughts — riddled with future worries, stuck in past regrets or mistakes and what we should have done, or just daydreaming of an imaginary scenario? Just by beginning to watch our thoughts, we can realise how much we ignore what is happening in the present moment of our lives.
Being attentive to your senses means observing what is happening around you, listening to sounds that engulf you, feeling what you touch, being aware of the different fragrances you come upon during your day, or relishing the tastes of what you eat.
If you are near a sea, observe how the waves crash on the rocks or come forward on the beach and then recede. Notice how they keep doing this synchronously. Listen to the sound of the waves and feel the wind on your skin.
If you are near a few trees and bushes, notice the sounds of the insects and birds that house those trees. Observe the gentleness of the greenery and the multiple shades of their colour, or find the other colours present.
Feel the cool air blowing through your window or from a fan or AC in your room. Listen to all the sounds present there. Notice how the chair, sofa or bed feels beneath you.
It seems simple, but a mind engrossed in thoughts tends to ignore or take for granted things that happen around it. By being attentive to our senses, we notice the wonders happening around us all the time, thus making it easy to detect the ‘my little happiness’ moments.
Step 2: Five minutes of journaling just before you sleep
When you have been attentive to your senses and noticed and enjoyed the ‘my little happiness’ moments, recall them before you sleep.
Use a physical journal to take notes and write all the experiences you can recall. Try not to use a laptop or your mobile that can distract you.
Be brief. Precise. Use bullet points or one statement to write about each experience.
Do this just for five minutes. No matter how busy you are, you can spare five minutes before you sleep. When done, keep the journal near your bed because you will need it in the morning.
You feel better after you have recalled your ‘my little happiness’ moments, so remember to do this just before you sleep. As the feelings that arouse through this recollection reverberate through your being, go to sleep.
If you do this regularly, I am sure the list of the experiences you write about every night will slowly increase.
Try it.
Step 3: Two minutes of reading your experiences just after you wake up
As you wake up the next day, pick up your journal and read what you wrote last night. It will only take two minutes. Remember the abundance you felt yesterday by recalling all the ‘my little happiness’ moments and notice how it makes you feel while reading them.
How you end the day significantly affects how you begin the next day. And how you start the next day affects how you live that entire day. Your beginning of the day creates a ripple effect, and starting on a high note will help you to notice your happy moments more frequently.
Let the upward cycle of happiness and creating a rich life begin.
Love,
Kartikey