Just a transient feeling that will pass. There’s nothing real about it. If you’re running around trying to be happy, then you’re doing it all wrong.

Happiness is a temporary positive feeling arising from an external event leading to self-gratification. Like sex, or attention, or burping a baby.

There’s nothing deep or enduring or long-lasting when it comes to happiness. Happiness is petty, it can be bought or taken from you.

Happiness is what you see on the Silver Screen. Happiness is obtained through the products you buy, the ones you see advertised in the media.

Happiness is good, don’t get me wrong. I’m often in pursuit of people, places, and situations to experience happiness, but joy is much better.

Joy is the true North Star. Joy is an enduring positive state of being, arising from internal events leading to contentment and peace of mind.

Joy is long-lasting. Some things that make one experience happiness may also lead to events giving rise to joy, but happiness is not a requirement.

Joy is an inside job. No external event needed. No feeling of happiness from self-gratification required. Just contentment and peace of mind.

It’s next level. An unhappy person may be a joyful person. It’s how one wins life. You can give it away, but joy can’t be bought or taken from you.

One simply feels good without thinking about it. They’ve done the work, taken the inventory, and are satisfied in knowing their true nature.

It’s quite simple: “To thine own self be true.” Accordingly, it comes down to one doing the work, taking the inventory, and writing their own story.

Is it self-hate for why I often wallow and live in the fucked-up story in my head of what I think others might think about me? It’s never good. Never.

I’m intuitively gifted at putting myself down, at kicking myself in the gut whenever/wherever possible. I have a knack for it. I’m great at it. A pro.

It needs to be reasonable, honest, and thorough. “No one will ever know” or “no one saw it” won’t help. You are the no one. You know it. You saw it.

Does this doom us to a lifetime of failure? Are we therefore here only to trudge through the mire of inadequacy and incompetence? We think not.

Hank writes about these things in his “Questions and Answers Chapter” that was never published. I nonetheless enjoy reading his manuscript.

“Are you going to pick yourself up and be better in the future? Not better as the world sees it, but better as your vision of yourself sees it?” Hmm…

Makes total sense to me. To do otherwise, to try to emulate some higher forever always unobtainable state of being, seems like utter failure.

We don’t speak the same language. Chaste. Prudent. Cautious. These words are foreign, like trying to read Swahili or something in Chinese.

Best to do the work, figure out what “To thine own self be true” means, lean into those things that make you happy, and always searching for joy.