Find True Love For Lasting Happiness
Some say that there’s no source of happiness (not even in finding true love) that keeps we humans happy and satisfied for long. They contend that people chase dreams and wrongly believe that what they seek will provide lasting happiness once they find it. Wanting it more, strengthens their belief that once they have it, that they’ll be permanently happy.
But typically, the seekers of lasting happiness experience none of that once they hold the prize in their hands or arms. Instead, they find that their object of desire was not really worth the time and efforts they expended to possess it. So, they regret having lusted after their heart’s desire so long while passing by so many other opportunities, not to mention the energy they spent to obtain what they thought would be their salvation.
Not only did their quest for lasting happiness fail to yield lasting results, but it instead brought these lonely people sadness, regret, and depression; exactly the opposite of what they hoped for. In spite of all the effort, these happiness-seekers remain unfulfilled. So, it’s understandable that they would eventually believe that the quest for lasting happiness forever typically goes unfulfilled. Thus they become sage grumps and discourage inexperienced others from seeking the same.
To these folks I’d ask however: Are we to accept that finding true love has no more lasting happiness potential than, say, winning the lottery? It may or may not. How would we know for sure? There are few objective measures of the degrees of permanence to apply to such life-altering events, though clearly, they do have differing impacts.
Those claiming that it’s impossible to permanently satisfy any desire avoid these questions by conveniently not mentioning certain yearnings (such as the longing for true love and the true love that sometimes satisfies it for long periods if not forever). In fact, the disillusioned avoid attempting to quantify the relative influences of life-altering events. They treat them as having the same impact on mood in the people studied. What a stretch! Different sorts of events would seem to have differing levels of effect on a person’s mood over the long term depending on just what it is that the given person really wants. The discovery of true love a means to lasting happiness indeed offers lasting happiness to the people lucky enough to find it.
The instant thrill of winning the lottery, even a big pot like several million dollars, dwarfs the more long-lived, steady sense of comfort, satisfaction, and wanting for nothing that comprises the lasting happiness that comes with finding true love. But not everyone reacts to lots of money with the same degree of joy. Individual preference and circumstance drives this. A person who loves money more than true love for instance, would be happier with money than true love, like the gold digger for example. Such people would more enjoy diving into a big money bag than a sleeping bag for two. Finding a big pot of gold may indeed be more pleasing in an enduring way to them, than would be finding true love.
On the other hand, others care very little about money, and seek only to find true love. For these types, winning the lottery would not be so mood-elevating, while finding true love would. So to suggest that the joy of finding true love cannot last because the joy of receiving a large cash payout doesn’t last, well, that’s like saying that an apple tastes just like an orange.
The personalities and deeply embedded desires of the individual (which are markedly diverse to begin with) would strongly influence just how changeable their average moods would be. Then, how changeable their moods would be, would also be largely driven by the particular life-altering events that happen to them. Different people respond differently to different life-changing events, and the enduring effects of each event on each person would vary widely.
So, I’m leery of inferring that every person’s mood set points can be altered (or not) by the same life-altering events. The gold digger’s overall mood would more be impacted by his receiving a large amount of money while the true love digger’s mood would be more changed by finding true love. Indeed, what one person would consider a major life-changing event, another would take as a normal part of ho-hum living. My hunch though is that finding lasting happiness in true love would result in a deeper, more enduring gratification than would winning the lottery.