Happiness Is Wanting What You Have

My yoga teacher mentioned in class that she has a plaque by her sink that reads, Happiness is wanting what you have. It is one of those sayings that makes me pause. Hmmm, do I want what I have? But wait a minute, if I had what I wanted wouldn't that solve all my problems? Of course I would be happy if I had everything I wanted. Wouldn't I?

But how do I get everything I want? Don't our wants constantly change? Let's take the physical body. Sometimes it wants food, sometimes it wants water and sometimes it wants sleep. Other times it wants physical activity or touch or it wants to feel the wind on its face. Sometimes it wants to smell the ocean or run in the rain…I could go on and on. The desire is constantly changing and once I eat that meal or sleep I no longer want that. So how can we ever have what we want when it changes once we get it?

I like this idea better of wanting exactly what I have. It allows me to reflect and be grateful. It also forces me to pay attention. We often believe that we have things in our lives that we do not want. But that is not how the universe works. Your life is a manifestation of all your yearnings. It is how we unconsciously create our lives. So when you look at your life and you think I do not want this and I do not want that you must ask yourself, why is it in my life then? While there are many layers to unpack here, one basic truth around this is that the feeling of wanting creates just that, wanting. Think of the carrot that dangles before the horse. It can never reach it but it keeps moving towards it and as it moves towards it, it continues to stay just out of reach. This is how so many of us live our lives. We feel that the thing we want is just out of reach.

But what if we stopped and looked around at what we have? Stop the unconscious moving toward something that is always out of reach. And like the horse, we don't see anything around us. We might even be stepping over a bushel of carrots but not seeing them because of the wanting of the one carrot out of reach. And after being consumed by all this striving, what happens when we reach it? What happens if the carrot is rotten once we reach it? Not only is it not what we really wanted but we missed everything else along the way.

Now you may think that if you don't strive for something and are content with what you have then you are settling for less. But by what measure? Settling for less than what others have? If I am happy with what I have and you have more that does not make me dumb for being happy with what I have. Each of us have different desires so if you are feeling that you don't want what you have then you have to look at why. Was it something you wanted at one time but now that you have it you realize it isn't what you really wanted? Is it something someone in your life wants that you only think you want?

Desire is an interesting thing. You must polish your desire. Hone it so that it is crystal clear. Check in with your desire. Maybe it isn't a pure desire but a temporary urge? Perhaps it is part of a larger addiction say to food or alcohol. Or maybe you have a strong feeling that you need to buy things or that you need a certain person in your life. Maybe you have a need to always feel safe or maybe you like to feel the thrill of risk. These are not pure desires. They are urges and they are temporary. True desire has a steadfast quality about it. It is not fleeting and it does not feel urgent. It does not make your world feel narrow on the contrary, it creates space and a sense of expansiveness. Anything that feels like you “need it now” is not desire but addiction. It is a way to avoid feeling something else. Something more vulnerable. The “need it now” feeling narrows your vision like the horse with the blinders on chasing the carrot. You can see nothing else but scratching that itch.

But what if you didn't scratch? What if you took notice of why the itch is there in the first place? What if you stop chasing the carrot and take the blinders off. You might see that you already have what you want. Or you might notice how grateful you are for what you do have and the ceaseless striving will stop for a moment. And in that moment you might even feel happy.

And that's all it takes to be happy, for a moment. You see happiness is not static either, it is fluid like desire and the more moments of happiness you string together the happier you will feel overall. And your happiness muscle will grow and expand to all corners of your life.