The Curse of the Modern World and Happiness

Happiness, where might you be? For many, this is a question that plagues them on a day to day basis. Oftentimes they do not even know what it is or where to look for it, but they are searching nonetheless.

It is important to realize that happiness is not pleasure. An addiction to new sensations must not control one’s life. In today's modern world and the development of new, exciting technology, medicines and other noteworthy discoveries has not only accelerated our advancement as a species on this planet, but also drastically increased the number of ways to stifle the urge to wake up and grow as true conscious beings.

Pain medications dished out with a scribble from a doctor, improved phone apps pushed on us only to shorten our attention spans, and all the other bad “consciousness blockers” are being perfected daily. The more we desire something new as we feel it will improve our lives, the greater the toll it takes on our mind through mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and stress.

Many people try to use various shortcuts, subconsciously feeling the need to find their peace, not realizing that by doing so they are distancing themselves even further from it.

Common shortcuts are the use alcohol to forget current problems, smoking marijuana to find peace, use of cocaine and amphetamines to be clearer and more confident, to feel the “joy of life” by using ecstasy, and LSD to see something resembling spiritual depth and conscious understanding of the universe.

These shortcuts only take you away from the essence and your own soul. These pleasures are only shortcuts to suffering, because by accelerating the coming to happiness, we are only closer to suffering because we are far from authentic happiness.

If a person is no longer able to sit with themselves, acknowledge their feelings and be content with simply being, how can they allow happiness to ever come to them? And if it does, how would they be able to notice that it is there? It seems as though everyone is turned off from themselves and turned on to some piece of technology. Just take a stroll outside and look at people on public transport, cafes or just on the street for that matter - they are staring at their mobile phones! No one goes to the toilet without a virtual world on a mobile phone.

People have become engrossed in looking like their idols from photoshopped pictures on social networks causing personal insecurities and an inability to look at the positive qualities of themselves in the mirror. The anti-ageing industry is advancing faster and faster, and the price of it is getting higher and higher, which inevitably causes a greater need for money and hysteria that leads to unrest, anxiety, anger and stress.

The “factory” of happiness is growing and the people of today are increasingly lonely and incapable of being self-sufficient in peace and tranquillity, unable to find happiness in the simplicity of their own life without stimuli and aids to happiness.

For a brief moment in time, a person’s unhappiness can be curbed by playing an app on a mobile phone, watching a new show on Netflix, tasting new foods or alcohol, trying the latest fat burner supplement on the market with the perception that it will create miracles without putting the hard effort in the gym, but at some point that will not be enough. One quickly jumps at one stimulus and then just as quickly begins to long for another, stronger one. It’s a cycle that is doomed to repeat itself if one doesn’t reconnect with their values and beliefs, and practice self-love and gratitude.

If we continue down this path of seeking happiness, we will have to become gods, apparently, in order to overcome life’s struggles without understanding the lessons that are there to help us grow as conscious beings, in order to get rid of suffering and death, in order to live over a hundred years while maintaining beauty, strength and the brain function of a 25 year old…

An impossible possibility! Instead of seeking happiness, we must let happiness find us, and that can only become possible once we become in touch once again with the core of our being. In the next several articles I will elaborate more on how the happiest people on the planet achieve this, so stay tuned!

If you enjoyed this article and would like more insightful reads, I always appreciate a coffee! (That’s what the tip button is for :) )

If patience is not a virtue to you and you would like to read the same books I am reading on this topic, then feel free to click here. Be kind to yourself and believe you are worth it, because you are!