We’re all striving for happiness and fulfillment in our own ways. And as lofty and honorable as those goals are, I also believe that we must be willing to pause during our quest so that we may notice when the race for more or better has become counter productive.

The pursuit for more is not always the golden ticket it’s touted as.

We don’t do ourselves any favors when we ignore the good that’s already within. Now, you may think I’m talking about the silver lining of crummy situations, but I’m not. To be honest, I’m sort of done with silver linings. Instead I’m trying to take a more “practical” look at what’s going well.

It’s not a glamorous or elevated perspective, but it feels more grounded and right now, grounded is exactly what I’m looking for.

There’s a lot of us out there who hold ourselves to unrealistic standards. Thanks to COVID, at least in my life, those standards all came crashing down in the past twelve months.

Even once life resumes something akin to “normal,” I don’t think I’ll pick up where I left off. The standards I’d set for myself pre-COVID weren’t reasonable and I bet I’m not the only one who’s come to this conclusion.

Sometimes the expectations we put on ourselves come from within. Other times they’re thrust upon us by outside sources.

Regardless, the pursuit for more, be it more success, more love, more time, more __, offers only short sighted gains when in truth what we’re looking for is contentment.

We want to be happy now. We want to feel successful in this moment.

But if that’s what we really want, we have to stop looking for it outside of now, and certainly outside of any perceived achievements or tangible gains.

I’m not suggesting we should renounce all of our belongings and become monks, or that we shouldn’t be ambitious in the pursuit of our dreams. But I am saying that perhaps our relentless drive to improve ourselves ought to take a new tactic.

Maybe it’s not about watching a dozen YouTube videos on productivity, habit building, or minimalism. Maybe contentment comes from doing less to “improve” ourselves, and more to do with getting to know ourselves.

Whether we reconnect with ourselves by jogging, getting out into the wilderness, or sitting in silence, I’m convinced, now more than ever, that the true secret to happiness is far simpler than we thought. And that it doesn’t include any personal development strategies available outside ourselves.

Refocusing our attention on what’s happening within means we’re working towards a sustained joy that can weather storms and move us beyond any grading system we’ve imposed upon ourselves.

So if still insist on being relentless in your pursuit for joy, which I think is a noble quest by the way, maybe start trying to accept who you are in any given moment first.

Whether you’ve given yourself an A+ or a D- in the past, you’ll get much farther towards that seemingly elusive thing we call joy if you remove the grade all together, and instead get to know that awesome person I know as you.

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