Everything Is Within You

[Staples]

Have you ever been to a comedy show?

Why did you go to that show? A night of entertainment right? Why did you seek entertainment?

At the end of the day, you went to the show because you wanted it to elevate your mood, you wanted to be happy.

How long did that happiness last? The next day, after the show, were you still happy because of the performance?

Was your mood permanently lifted for the rest of your life because you have one new positive memory under your belt?

 

No, you can apply this to as many experiences or consumer purchases as you want.

Your own happiness is your own responsibility, you will not find it outside of yourself.

 

This is probably a noob lesson to most of you, but I find the analogy of a comedy show really effective on people new to this work.

 

[Truth]

@Staples You don't even need spirituality to understand that one lol 

[sgn]

Right

From Noah Elkrief's book:

Quote

 

Distractions provide us with some relief from thoughts
Since getting what we want doesn’t fulfill us, we have developed a different way to make ourselves happy. We try to have fun and enjoy ourselves. We do this by distracting ourselves from the thoughts that cause our suffering, discontent, and restlessness. We have learned from watching our parents and friends, as well as from our own experiences in life, that distractions are an easy way to make ourselves happy and to escape from our unwanted emotions. We may be unaware of it, but we look to TV, movies, music, food, work, relationships, internet, phones, friends, shopping, drugs, and alcohol to distract us from the thoughts that create our suffering. These are the tools we have been given to make ourselves happy, so of course we are going to use them.

Since our thoughts make us suffer, we naturally do everything we can to avoid them. This is why most of us don’t want to be with ourselves with no distractions and always need to be with friends, on the phone, listening to music, watching TV, keeping ourselves busy, or engaging in some other form of distraction. Even when we are with others, our thoughts make us nervous or worried about what people think, so many of us choose to drink alcohol in order to take our attention away from the thoughts that prevent us from feeling free and happy. The more intense our suffering is, the stronger our urge will be to escape from our unwanted emotion and to engage in our favored distractions. This is why it is often very difficult to stop engaging in our “bad” habits.

 

This part I think is suitable to your example also:

Quote

Positive thoughts aren’t enough to fulfill us
For example, if you think about your wonderful vacation on the beach last month, this will give you some pleasure, and maybe put a smile on your face. However, telling yourself this great story will also at least create subtle thoughts about how where you are right now isn’t as “good” as where you were, which creates the feeling that you are lacking something. We usually aren’t aware that the anxiety or negative thoughts are present when we are giving attention to our positive memory, but this is part of the reason why positive-memory happiness is a much less peaceful and satisfying experience than present-moment happiness.

 

[YaNanNallari]

People give you such weird looks if you think this way I think it's totally fine to remind about it. Saying I don't feel like going somewhere because I don't need something from it is just considered weird by others.

[YaNanNallari]

Also this goes the other way around. If you're feeling good a lot of people explain it externally, although the happiness is inside you. They end up playing themselves down.