True Happiness Is Effortless

According to the TAO, human happiness comes from "being"-- that is, being who you really are, and not who you wish you were. Of course, you also need to do something to create the feeling of happiness; but the "doing" should be effortless, which is the opposite of "over-doing."

Life is meaningless and purposeless if happiness is absent. The truth of the matter is that many people are unhappy. So, the leading question is: what makes you happy?

It is also a myth that happiness is something that can be pursued with willpower and effort. The Bible rightly says that pursuing happiness is “like chasing the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

 

Effort does not necessarily bring happiness; it only creates the illusion of an environment conducive to creating temporary happiness.

One may work diligently in one’s career to excel and to get to the top of the profession only to find that one has a terminal illness, or has incurred a debilitating accident. To illustrate, Joe Paterno the former Penn State football coach, whose reputation ruined by a sexual abuse scandal at the peak of his career, was fired, and died shortly of cancer; Steve Job, the co-founder of Apple computers, had his life cut short by pancreatic cancer at the height of his successful business career. Extra effort does not always pay off.

Pursuing happiness may be only a fantasy fueled by temporary moments of happiness, because aging, illnesses, misfortunes, and ultimately death plague all alike; in other words, impermanence cuts short all human efforts to bring happiness. We are all aware of the fact that impermanence is a leveler of everybody and everything, but many of us still choose to delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. Denial only fosters the myth that if there is a will there must be a way to attaining happiness, and that all it requires is human effort to make any dream come true.

The truth of the matter is that true happiness is, surprisingly, effortless, because it comes from within, and not from without; it is part of self, and is natural to human life and existence.

The Book of Life and Living

This book shows you how to attain true human wisdom through asking self-intuitive questions, creating an empty mindset with reverse thinking to let you have a blueprint for the art of living in this challenging world.

The Happiness Wisdom

This book shows you that true human happiness comes from human wisdom to understand self and others, as well as the world around, deepening the innate spirituality that guides the body and the soul to live as if everything is a miracle.

THE HAPPINESS WISDOM

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau