It isn’t easy to swallow, but the mind was not created for happiness, it was created for survival.  This can be a tough pill to swallow.  We believe that we are meant to feel joy and happiness all the time and when we don’t have that constant euphoria, we look for other ways to get it. We indulge in distraction and activities that aren’t healthy for us thinking it makes us happy.  But the point of life isn’t strictly to be happy.  Yes, I said it.  In spite of all of our talk about finding joy and letting joy be the driver (which paradoxically still holds true) happiness is not the point of the mind.  Our brains are a powerful supercomputer but we need to remember we are still animals.  We still have primitive instincts, the most basic of which is survival.  The brain makes thousands of calculations a second to evaluate and determine if we are in danger.  The goal of the brain is to keep us alive.  All of the other chemicals that produce joy and happiness are a bonus.  Those are things that tell us we are guided in the right direction—once we are in safety.

With that being said, we need to understand that we have to program our brains.  We need to teach our brain that we aren’t in a constant battle for survival in this day and age.  We have the ability to spend our time in creativity instead of fighting off predators.  It’s a luxury to be able to focus on things that make us feel good.  Yes, there is still a lot of crap in this world, things driven by ego and greed, and some of those things are dangerous, but we can choose to do better.  The point is that we need to choose happiness in every moment.  Choose joy.  Choose love.  Surround ourselves with joy and love.  When we surround ourselves in that type of environment, we can change the course.  Finding joy and happiness becomes an exercise in determining what is good.

Survival matters above all, but we can shift the need to feel good into a purposeful event.  Life isn’t always easy, it isn’t meant to be, but we can use that good feeling to guide us toward our purpose which, in turn, can make us feel good and bring some light to the world.  Knowing the purpose of the brain is survival, we can work with that energy and learn to trust that we are safe.  Once we know we are safe then we open up entirely new worlds.  It’s a reframing of our intention that allows us to create a more purposeful life. I don’t want to mis-represent anything because I do believe that happiness is our guidepost and a good indicator that we are on the right path. But when we seek happiness over purpose, we lose sight along the way. Trust that if we do the things that keep us focused, we will find that purpose and that is a happy thing.