keyang's Blog

I live in Hollywood. You might think that people in such a glamorous, fun place are happier than others. If so, you have some misconceptions about the nature of happiness.

Many intelligent people still equate happiness with pleasure. The truth is that pleasure and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an operation. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is deeper, more abiding emotion.

Go to an amusement park or ball game, watch a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.

I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have manolo pumps a role to play is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with pleasure. These wealthy individuals have constant access to beautiful glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells "happiness".

But in memory after memory, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all the fun: depression, … drug addiction, broken marriages, … profound loneliness.

The way people cling to the belief that a fun, pain-free life equates happiness actually diminishes their chances of ever achieving true happiness. If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then choo boots pain must be equated with unhappiness. But in reality the opposite is true: more often than not, the things that lead to happiness involve some pain.

As a result, many people avoid the very efforts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, parenting, professional achievement, religious commitment, work or civic charitable and self-improvement.