Happiness as a State of mind not as an effect of an experience
I've been doing a lot of introspection about this saying about happiness. They say money can't buy happiness and it explains it since happiness is a state of mind. If you're rich in a Lamborghini and you're thinking about sad things or things that'll make you angry, the $500K Lambo has nothing to do with that and can't do much to change your mood unless you stop thinking about it and perhaps enjoy the moment of driving a nice sports car
It really is something we hear people say all of the time, maybe it’s supposed to make us feel better. That when we’re feeling bad we can just change our thinking about it and what was wrong is now all right. That would be nice if it worked that way, but I have a hard time believing it is as simple as that.
Sometimes, there are just some pretty miserable situations and no amount of changing your thoughts is going to help you pay your rent or get you out of traffic or change that person who keeps disappointing you even if you're rich.
I do think there is some truth to it though. Not the just think positive stuff, but the saying suggests that two people can be in the same situation and have completely different experiences to them. One person will see rain and be stuck and another person will see rain and feel freed.
I think that happiness being defined as a state of mind means that you don’t have to wait until you are experiencing something good to be happy. You don’t have to wait until you get your next job or get your next boyfriend or until you have enough money to be happy. To some people maybe they do. Sometimes I get really close to figuring it all out and somehow I lose it again because somethings are good at taking your joy away even if your mean to stay happy.
What I can say is that waiting to have the perfect situation in order to be happy hasn’t worked for me so far. I have tried that path a lot.