If you are wise, life’s real work is making progress in being happy.
We are not happy because we think we deserve it or think it will make our lives easier. Both are beside the point. We work to be happy because when we are happy, we are most able to help others and most useful in making positive changes in the world.
Unhappy people are easy to spot. They do anything to distract from the pain that they feel inside. Happy people have made peace with issues, and have humbled themselves to acknowledge that life is still worth living even if it is not exactly how they would prefer it.
In science fiction, we often have understood timelines where if event X happens, a different history or future happens. I had the same experience in my dreams. In one dream I dreamed of a future that I had wanted at one point in my life, and in that dream, it felt completely real. It felt as real as this present reality we call reality. Yet in that timeline, I was horrified at my situation, and depressed at the choices I had made and what my life had become. I thought I can’t believe that I choose this and then I woke up.
After I woke up I was stunned and a little bit disorientated. My heart was racing, it was the middle of the night. I said to myself, I guess that isn’t the path for me. I never had the opportunity to take that path but I was close if only a few things had been slightly different. I was relieved that wasn’t my future, and still am relieved.
We don’t know if we would be happier if all our desires were possible, but I doubt it. Very few of us know ourselves well enough to make this successful. We have been hypnotized by culture and the BS that well-meaning people feed us. Being happy, and letting go of illusions, that is the only thing that can really make a change in the world.