Self-help

13 Thieves of Happiness You Must Avoid At All Times

You hold the keys to your happiness. Learn what keeps you away from it first.

Everyone is looking for happiness in life. Even a villain is after maximizing his self-satisfaction to be happy. That is an unconscious human process to avoid suffering. When suffering is gone, there is room for satisfaction, and satisfaction is somehow recognized as the path to happiness. That is the idea behind it. Is it really so?

I definitely doubt that.

Since the rise of civilization, people have suffered from wars, conflicts, loss of loved ones, fears and anxieties, frustrations and failures, resistance to change, betrayal, and much more. Tired of the endless number of obstacles, barriers, preventions, manipulations, and challenges, people naturally tend to avoid suffering and pain. However, the lack of suffering does not mean satisfaction because satisfaction is related to our mindset.

No matter which riches and beauties surround you, they may not be enough if you are hungry for more and more.

Success will not be enough for someone with selfish ambitions.

Love will not be enough for a lover with materialistic expectations.

Appreciation will not be sufficient for someone who desperately is in need of constant applauds as if life is just a theater show.

Someone dying for approval will not be happy with small success stories.

Do you see now how happiness is related to your mindset? Pleasure is not happiness, because it is conditional. Once the external stimuli resulting in pleasure stop, happiness is gone. Therefore, the philosophers have been after something unconditional and everlasting to be the real source of happiness since ancient times. In ancient Greek, it was living by virtue — arete as they called it. In esoteric schools, wisdom and winning over the ego was the recipe. Independent of the cultures and the doctrines, ethics have been considered to be a foundation of success. Nevertheless, many unethical and cruel people in life are happy. This type of happiness is not real; it is an illusion because it depends on external factors.

The only way to establish a level of real happiness is to develop self-awareness or yourself. Everything starts and ends in your inner world. It is your consciousness that shapes your reality in the world. You attract what you are insured or what you want in life.

Let us take a moment to understand the 13 thieves that steal your happiness.

1. Ignorance, dogma, and bigotry

They say that ignorance is bliss. I do not agree. It is nothing but hiding from reality because knowing the truth means leaving your comfort zone. Once you start developing awareness, you can start learning. However, dogma and bigotry are a fixation that’ll keep you from learning that’s only about yourself and about life and the world around you. They are your anchors anchoring you to your current self. But there is a better self of you too.

2. Superstition

It is about your false belief acquired in childhood. Your family, your city, and your culture shaped that. It is just another type of ignorance and dogma that will keep you from freedom. Read, learn, and move away from it.

3. Lack of self-confidence

I think this is pretty straightforward. Unless you have self-confidence, you can never march towards your dreams and goals. You need the courage to take the first step and wants to take it, the rest will come. The first challenge to take the step is harder than the journey simply because it’s about leaving your comfort zone. Everyone suffers through it in life. Everyone fears, but only the brave ones move forward, overcoming their fears.

4. Lack of self-esteem

This is something that supports self-confidence. Self-confidence may trigger you to move forward and overcome all the challenges. However, when the harsh and real life tests come and find you, only your self-esteem will keep you strong. Self-worth and self-love depend on your level of self-esteem.

5. Lack of self-love

You cannot give others anything unless you have it inside yourself. This is the same for love too. If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. Otherwise, it will be just an attachment with an unconscious expectation to receive back the love you have been dying for.

6. Lack of self-belief

You may have all have dreams and goals in life. However it is hard to start the journey and hit the results. It is even harder to sustain these results and grow further. There will be many challenges along the way that will keep you away from your path. In such moments, you will lose your faith. Notice that I used faith instead of belief.

Faith is something that we use ordinarily in real life conversations. However the real meaning of faith is unshakable belief. If your belief was unshakable, then it would be called faith. In order to achieve unshakable belief, you should get rid of all doubts. The key is no hesitation.

7. Toxic people

You meet every kind of people in life. However the ones that you stick around the most are the ones that represent your world inner inside. The rule is simple. The like attracts the like. This is hard to except but take a moment to understand what I mean. Your reality is nothing but a mirror to help you know yourself. It will come in veils of good and evil. Toxic people therefore is another way of life to hold a mirror to you.

No matter how funny or enjoyable such people are, if you have people around you who cause suffering, pain, and sorrow, just let them go.

8. Toxic situations

You can escape from everything in life but you cannot escape from yourself. So, then you change places in your life unless your consciousness have changed, similar situations that cause suffering inside you will repeat. You can run away from a place, but you will bring your suffering with you unless you have transformed yourself.

If there are things you have to change to become a better and more conscious person, then just act now and be the change. With this new level of consciousness, if you notice that where you live and where are you work don’t support your life journey, just let them go too. Take another path that is in line with what do you want to do in life.

Don’t ever leave the life of someone else because you got only one life.

9. Attachments

As I explained in my previous stories, this is about your attachments to the material world and the illusions you created. Thus, you are living in your own matrix. Attachment means an obsession to anything in life. It is about something that you cannot let go. It is something that you cannot live without. It can be your home, a property, hobbies, work, business, smart phone, culture, reputation, and even your beloved ones.

Anything that you seize more than enough or anything that you want to control extraordinarily in life is an attachment. You have to learn to let things be as they are. You have to learn to let people live ad they want.

10. Ambition to Control

Your fears and anxieties result in an effort to control everything in life. This seems to be a good antidote to establish stability in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. However, the more you try to control things the less success you have. It is OK to have a strategy and make plans, But life is bigger than our plans and will bring many unexpected things. So, plan less and live more.

11. Expectation

It is normal and OK to have goals and dreams in life. Planning and dreaming will result in having expectations which is also normal. The problem starts when you cannot deal with the challenges of failures, obstacles, and frustration. If you’re obsessed with your dreams and goals, then you are not in the middle way. It means you lost control.

12. Conceit

Arrogance is the worst sin in life, because no matter what you do, it will pull you back. It wouldn’t venue reach to the top. You will hurt yourself and others.

13. Comparison

Yes, you are living in a world of polarity. There’s good and evil, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly in life. You cannot understand what good means without the evil, and vice versa. Therefore it is the principle of polarity that enables you to perceive everything in life.

The problem starts when the mind compares you with the others and cause suffering.

Don’t ever look at the riches of others and covet for what you don’t have.

Don’t compare your successes with the success stories of others. Everyone has a different life and destiny in this life.

Do your best to improve yourself and to succeed, but avoid making comparisons.

You’re not competing with the world and others. If there’s a competition to talk about, it’s only with yourself to reach your better self.

Happiness is such a complex topic to discuss. Just understand that satisfaction and pleasure is not the key to happiness. In a world of speed, pleasures, and consumption, happiness is a byproduct of your lifelong journey, not a result of it. You cannot win or earn happens. It will come to you automatically as a byproduct of your journey when you live and love unconditionally.

Cheers,

Kenan