Humans seem to be happy just as long as they have something in the future to look forward to, whether this is a good time tomorrow or an eternal life beyond physical death.

Tying Our Happiness To Future Events

In order to really enjoy the pleasures of life, we need to face the painful parts, too.Pain and pleasure take turns: constant pleasure is a stimulus that must either lose strength or grow. And this growth will either harden the sense buds with its friction, or turn into pain. The more we are capable to love a person and feel good in their presence, the greater must be our heartache and grief at their death, or in separation.

The Pain And Pleasure Spectrum

The brain is in pursuit of happiness, and because it is much more preoccupied with the future than the present, it sees happiness as an assurance of a future with pleasures, that must be cramped into the span of a few years.And the “brainy” economy is a remarkable vicious circle that need to fabricate more and more pleasures or otherwise it will collapse: it must provide a constant stimulation for the ears, eyes, and nerve ends through neverending streams of noise and visual distractions. These streams of stimulants are created to produce even more cravings, and these cravings drive us to do that has nothing interesting for us, apart from the money it pays (which we use to get more stuff in an attempt to persuade us that happiness lies just around the corner if we will buy one more thing.)

The Happiness Consumerism

The real problem doesn't come from feeling pain the in moment, but from the way we use memory and anticipation.The object or event we fear is not always something happening in the immediate future. It may be the problem of next month’s bills, a social or natural disaster, or even death. It may even be something from the past, a memory that torments the present and makes us feel bitterness or guilt.

"Spoilers" Of The Present

So, rather than feeling anxious about it, accept this insecurity as a part of life by being aware of the present moment. This will help you find peace and contentment.We have no reassurance regarding what the future will bring and even the best predictions are still just that, predictions, matters of probability rather than certainty. All we know for sure is that every person will experience some kind of pain and death. If we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are clearly not adapted to living in a world where accidents will happen, no matter how hard we try to avoid them, and where everybody dies at the end.

There Is No Security In Life

Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.

"If we are open only to discoveries which will accord with what we know already, we may as well stay shut. (...) It is in vain that we can predict and control the course of events in the future, unless we know how to live in the present. It is in vain that doctors prolong life if we spend the extra time being anxious to live still longer. It is in vain that engineers devise faster and easier means of travel if the new sights that we see are merely sorted and understood in terms of old prejudices. It is in vain that we get the power of the atom if we are just to continue in the rut of blowing people up."

Silence is the only way to discover something new to talk about. The person constantly talking, without stopping to look and listen, is repeating himself over and over again.The same thing happens with thinking, which is really silent talking. Thinking is by nature not open to the discovery of anything new - the only novelties it brings are simply the result of moving old ideas around and rearranging them. When thoughts stop, the mind is open to see a problem as it is (not as we verbalize it) and this opens the path to real understanding.

Giving Power To Silence

Being aware of life means experiencing it as it is in the present moment, without judgments or ideas about it.You have to see and feel what you are "experiencing as it is, and not as it is named".

What Awareness Is

Memories are abstract things: they symbolize knowledge about things rather than of things. Memory never captures the core and the tangible reality of an experience."It is, as it were, the corpse of an experience, from which the life has vanished. What we know by memory, we know only at secondhand. Memories are dead because fixed."

Memories Never Truly Succeed In “Catching” Reality

We usually don't trust the “snap” solutions our wandering minds find, but the truth is that these easy and almost unconscious solutions is what the brain is supposed to deliver.When it's functioning the right way, the brain is the highest form of “instinctual wisdom.” And because of that, it should work without articulating the process or knowing “how” it does it.

Instinctual Wisdom

<ol><li>Compare it with the memories of other experiences, to name and define it. This is to interpret it in accordance with the the past.</li><li>Be aware of it as it is, forget past and future, let the present be all, and thus do not even stop to think, "I am happy.”</li></ol>Both ways are somehow useful. But they correspond to the difference between knowing a thing by words and knowing it immediately.

The Two Ways Of Understanding An Experience

There is a viewpoint from which the “rationalization” of life is not rational. The brain is clever enough to see the vicious circle which it has made for itself. But it can't do nothing about it.You may acknowledge that worrying brings no benefits, but that doesn't stop you from worrying; instead, you worry even more for being unreasonable. Calling a negative feeling bad names doesn’t help you to get rid of it.

Rationalizing Life

We think that making sense out of life means we have in some way to fit the sequence of events into a rigid framework.Life is meaningful to us if we can understand it in terms of fixed codes, rules and law. But if this is what “making sense out of life” means, we have set ourselves the impossible task of "making fixity out of flux."

Making Sense Out Of Life

If a problem can be solved, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing.Doing something about a problem that you don't understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands.

Understanding Comes Through Awareness

The essential introduction to his life and ideas

books

Books

communication

Communication

philosophy

Philosophy

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

The Philosophy Of Alan Watts 

We live in an age of unprecedented anxiety. Spending all our time trying to anticipate and plan for the future and to lamenting the past, we forget to embrace the here and now. We are so concerned with tomorrow that we forget to enjoy today. Drawing from Eastern philosophy and religion, Alan Watts shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not—and cannot—know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing. In The Wisdom of Insecurity, he shows us how, in order to lead a fulfilling life, we must embrace the present—and live fully in the now. Featuring an Introduction by Deepak Chopra.

Acclaimed philosopher Alan Watts shows us how—in an age of unprecedented anxiety—we can find fulfillment by embracing the present and living more fully in the now. He is "the perfect guide for a course correction in life" (from the Introduction by Deepak Chopra).  The brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it. Alan Watts draws on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy and religion in this timeless and classic guide to living a more fulfilling life. His central insight is more relevant now than ever: when we spend all of our time worrying about the future and lamenting the past, we are unable to enjoy the present moment—the only one we are actually able to inhabit. Watts offers the liberating message that true certitude and security come only from understanding that impermanence and insecurity are the essence of our existence. He highlights the futility of endlessly chasing moving goalposts, whether they consist of financial success, stability, or escape from pain, and shows that it is only by acknowledging what we do not know that we can learn anything truly worth knowing. In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts explains complex concepts in beautifully simple terms, making this the kind of book you can return to again and again for comfort and insight in challenging times. “Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Watts had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully the unwritable.’” —Los Angeles Times

The Happiness Consumerism

Similar ideas to The Happiness Consumerism

Focus on present

Don't Chase Happiness

Happiness Myths