How To Steal Back Happiness In Today's World

oh look at I have this pen and then the moment that this external thought this person has more the moment that that thought enters my happiness is destroyed the reason that video games no longer become fun is because we get bored while playing them we can be very very excited about the future but the moment that the thought of climate change the thought of inflation the thought of a dating crisis enters our mind we are no longer happy today I want to teach you how how to be happy now that may sound insane because is

happiness something that can be taught because normally when we think about happiness we think about a fulfilling life oh yeah the future is bright but there's climate change there's war there's inflation we think oh happiness is finding the person that you love right oh if I could just get this person to love me back then I would be happy but often times those people succeed in entering a relationship and it doesn't lead to happiness divorce rates are 50% people change the relationship turned out not to be what you thought it was and then we think

about happiness's goals like I want to achieve all of these things and if I achieve all of these things then I will be happy but y'all know better than I do all kinds of crap gets in the way so how on Earth are we supposed to be happy in today's world well it's actually pretty simple the problem is that we have forgotten or lost what it means to actually be happy we we have lost our technical understanding of what happiness is right so if you ask someone oh what is Happy what is happiness to you

first of all that's that question is stupid because happiness to you is irrelevant there is no happiness to you it's not like we asking the question oh what is sadness to you what is pain to you what is feeling anxious to you no like these are common technical neuroscientific definitions of the human state of existence and we have lost our understanding of first of all what the definition of happiness is and since we don't even know what it is we can't consistently create it but here's the crazy thing we actually know exactly what happiness is

that's what I'm going to teach you today and once we understand what it is we will understand how to create it I know this is going to sound nuts but basically irrespective of the circumstances of your life now if you're listening to this the first thing that you're going to say is this is right like this is insane you can't just make a video about be H learning to be happy or how to be happy and then everyone becomes happy if it was that so simple someone would have done it well hear me out and

let's pay attention and then we'll see right cuz I get that I get how insane it is but just bear with me so the first thing that we got to understand is that happiness does not come from objects right so this is the biggest mistake we make and it's a tragedy that this is true by the way so we go our whole lives thinking that a particular particular thing will make me happy right so oh if I have a burger today I will be happy if I can get this person to fall in love with

me I will be happy I'm a virgin if I can get laid I will be happy if I get promoted if I make more money all of these things will bring me happiness now why do we believe this stuff because in our experience duh duh it's true I wanted a burger I got a burger and I ate it and now I'm happy Dr K what the hell are you talking about this is how it works except it doesn't work that way I know I know just hear me out cuz if the burger is where the

happiness is every time you eat a burger you would be happy right and I was addicted to video games this is the big tragedy is that the the happiness is not in the object if it was I would I wouldn't be here I would be super happy being a degenerate gamer playing video games 24 hours a day seven days a week that's what I'd be doing all the time but the whole problem is that chasing that object doesn't consistently bring you happiness and you all know this right because you can have your favorite show that

you want oh I really want to binge watch a show and then it's just not enjoyable you really want to play this video game oh Path of Exile 2 just came out and everyone's really excited you load up pathway like or you do finally get that person to go out with you on a date you do finally get laid and it turns out that this is not what you thought it was so the first thing that we have to understand is that if the happiness is in the object every time we engage with the object

we would get the same level of happiness right like that's just how it works if the weight of this pen is in the pen when I pick up the pen I feel the weight that doesn't change no matter how many times I pick it up what my mood is what the weather is it doesn't matter doesn't matter the the the the quality is intrinsic in the object but that's not how it works for happiness so how does it work for happiness so once again we're going to pay attention to our experiences so there's this saying

that comparison is the thief of joy and I've been seeing this posted on all of the Instagrams comparison is the thief of Joy don't compare don't compare don't compare so we can learn a lot from this the problem is that comparison is not the only thief of Joy right so we can go through our lives not comparing and there are all kinds of other things that can take away our happiness and this is really important data because if we understand the mechanism of how comparison takes away our happiness we will understand what happiness truly is

so let's say that I get a toy okay I get some present for Christmas and I'm really happy happy I'm like yeah I got this toy and then I I call my friend and my friend who you know also got Christmas presents like yeah I got that same toy and I got this other toy and now suddenly I was happy right I was really happy with the the toy and then this other this bit of information this bit tiny bit of information from my friend enters my brain and then suddenly I was so happy with

this oh wow I'm so happy and then suddenly this happiness disappears like what the isn't that weird weird like think about that for a second right isn't it really strange that you can be perfectly happy with something then something happens and the happiness is robbed oh I got promoted yeah I'm making $100,000 a year oh your bonus was you're making 120 suddenly I'm unhappy so kind of weird right and now let's look at our other example of playing a video game or binge watching a show and not enjoying it what is it that makes you

not enjoy binge watching a show why do we even long for things like binge watching shows playing video games drugs sex even sleep I work with people who are suicidal and they long for death what are they longing for with all of these things they are longing for a peace of mind right so I want to get lost in a show I want to be so engaged with the show that the rest of the world disappears I want to turn that that TV on at 6:00 and I want to watch all through the night fuel

myself and then when Dawn comes I'm going to pass out it's going to be amazing dude I've done land parties guys I know we we know what we're talking about if you're a land party person you want to obliviate your mind you want to be lost with drugs you want to be completely outside of your own head and that brings us to another Point as well which is that everyone is doing mindfulness now but mindfulness is a scam that's not really what it is the point of mindfulness is not to fill your mind with things

it is actually the exact opposite to empty your mind the actual practice is mindlessness right that's what we're trying to do we're trying to empty our mind and when we enter this empty mind State we end up being relatively content and happy people who do mindfulness meditation for about an 8-week period their quality of life increases they become objectively happier so how can we kind of distill all of these examples to understand what the nature of happiness is so when I'm enjoying oh I got a pen for Christmas yay I'm very happy so at this

moment my mind is focused on this I am absorbed in this this is why we love drugs so if if people who you know are dancing while they're drunk or eating getting the munchies while they're high what is so fun about that it's that you are completely absorbed within the activity this is also why orgasm is so much fun because when you are having an orgasm you are not thinking about anything else so the nature of happiness is very simple the nature of Happiness is a one-pointedness of the mind and anytime we are absorbed within

one activity we are happy the problem that we fall into is that we become dependent on external objects to create this one-pointedness of the mind for us since I don't know how to make my mind one-pointed I'm going to rely on a video game or drugs or a a TV show and we don't watch boring shows right we're going to r on this object to make our mind one-pointed the problem is that as we rely on this external object to force one-pointedness of the mind for us then our mind becomes weak we are not capable

of making our mind one-pointed now there's a really really interesting term to describe a mind that is not one-pointed a mind that is fractured in a thousand directions and as a psychiatrist the thing that my patients consistently hate the most across every patient that I've worked with the thing that people dislike the most is something called boredom when people hear about our coaching program their first response is usually why would I work with another human being when I can watch YouTube videos all on my own working with a coach is about amplifying your time and

effort we're great at wanting things and even making some progress but we usually struggle with follow through or have some kind of setback and that's exactly where working with a coach can help coaches provide personalized support to help you set appropriate goals make progress and even work through setbacks just let us know what your goals are what kind of support you're looking for and we'll match you with the best coach for your unique needs check out the link in the description below to see if coaching is right for you so what is boredom what happens

inside you when you were bored your mind is all over the place you want to do this you want to do this you want to do this you feel Restless you feel like fidgeting right there's nothing to occupy the mind so when we're bored I don't know if this has ever happened to you but a couple days ago I was bored so I loaded up a video game I played it for 5 minutes and I was like ah this is not fun for me so I closed the video game I started browsing Reddit for a

couple of minutes then I closed Reddit and I was like this is not fun for me then I loaded up a second video game Star sector and then Path of Exile and I played that for 5 minutes and I was like H this is not doing it for me what human beings hate more than anything else in this world is boredom happiness and sadness are not opposites happiness and boredom are opposites because happiness is a one-pointed mind and boredom is a mind that's all over the place why is it that we watch TV when we

eat something because when we eat something instead of focusing on this our mind is running all over the place so instead what we want is we want an artificial way to focus our mind so that we're not bored when we eat and now if we look at all of the things that destroy our happiness we will see that there is one very very very simple pattern I used to be one-pointed and now an external thought enters and shatters is why my one-pointedness I used to be oh look at I have this pen and then the

moment that this external thought this person has more the moment that that thought enters my happiness is destroyed the reason that video games no longer become fun is because we get bored while playing them we can be very very excited about the future but the moment that the thought of climate change the thought of inflation the thought of a dating crisis enters our mind we are no longer happy happy and this is the cool thing about a one-pointed mind all the things that you think of as making you unhappy will no longer make you unhappy

really good example is something called work so I've seen so many posts about people saying oh is this just life where we're working from 9 to5 and then we commute and then that's it I can't I can't do this for 30 years right I can't slog away for 30 years and then on the flip side we have this thing called The Flow State which is this mythical creation of this time when people are like they're working really hard being really productive and it feels really good like that sounds completely op what's the difference between these

two states when you are grinding 9 to5 and you don't like your job what is happening in your mind are you absorbed with your work of course not your mind is wandering your work is boring what is boring is a many fluctuations of the mind all at once right this is the nature of suffering my work is so boring so then I have to distract myself I can tolerate work if I listen to an Audi book if I listen to a podcast why do we do that because when I listen to a podcast it creates

one-pointedness of the mind and makes the work more tolerable but it's not the podcast itself it is simply the one-pointedness of the mind that becomes tolerable and this is true from a clinical perspective as well if we look at any mental illness you can whichever one you want we're going to go through a bunch of them what we we will see is that all of these mental illnesses share one thing which is many fluctuations of the mind when someone is depressed they're thinking oh life is hopeless there's no point no one likes me I'm failing

I'm terrible I'm a loser so many thoughts when we look at something like a panic attack or anxiety that's even worse oh my God this is going to happen and this is going to happen and this is going to happen and then you engage with those thoughts you feed those thoughts and you work yourself from anxiety into a panic attack what is the difference between anxiety and panic attack the number of thoughts that you're having per second we can even look at things like obsessive compulsive disorder which is literally the de definition of obsessive compulsive

disorder is to have intrusive obsessional thoughts that will never go away the reason that we engage in compulsions is to shut off our thoughts literally this is what happens in OCD people are like unless I flick the light switch up and down seven times I will keep having thoughts of everyone in my life dying in a car accident so in order to shut off the thoughts they engage in the behavior this is the really sad thing if we look at the world today we all have a very mild form of OCD we don't really have

OCD but the analogy still holds because what are we doing I have a negative thought what do I do I engage in a compulsive Behavior to make it go away I'm bored what should I do play a video game makes the thought of boredom go away I feel terrible about myself what should I do watch some porn makes the thought of being feeling terrible about myself go away so if you want to create happiness in your life irrespective of your circumstances and I know this is what's really going to rub people the wrong way because

we all think that the circumstances create happiness but we know that's not true there are plenty of billionaires out there who are still struggling to be happy and I've worked with homeless people who seem oddly content you may have met some of these people in your life where you're like how is this person so happy despite having so little or you may look at another person and say how on Earth is this person so unhappy when they have so much so sure there is a correlation between the amount of security you have the amount of

money you have in your happiness that correlation absolutely exists but what we're talking about is a technical definition of Happiness what is happiness within you so now the question becomes how do we create it so the first thing that we've got to do is talk about meditation and I know oh meditation is the answer meditation is the answer meditation no meditation not the answer we're going to talk about it you decide whether meditation is the answer meditation is not going to make you happy okay let's understand how meditation can make you happy if you do

it the right way what does meditation train us to do meditation trains us to have a one-pointed mind that's it observe your breath keep on observing your breath but I'm bored I don't give a keep observing your breath keep observing your breath but I'm bored I'm not doing anything there's no video games there's no titties it's just meditation I'm bored right meditator I'm titty I don't know I don't know if that's going to be Ed I don't know whatever okay so what's the purpose of meditation so if you want a one-pointed mind meditation is simply

the easiest way to practice entering a one a one-pointed state of mind right so this is why meditation is also an evidence-based intervention for anxiety for depression for schizophrenia for OCD like cool how that works right it relieves all of these things because it it counters the basic problem with those which is too many thoughts thoughts all over the place really chaotic thoughts and yall know what this is like you know what it's like to be have thoughts full of your head and you don't know what to do and you're spiraling and all feels terrible

it's so much suffering instead we want peace we want peace peace of mind okay so meditation is the first thing that will train you to do that if you want to do that the second thing that we can do and this one is going to be even a crappier answer than meditation is learn to tolerate boredom so this is what I would recommend for you all you guys if if the weather is decent you're not going to like get frostbite or anything so I I think a grounding practice works really well so go outside make

sure your shoes are off and hopefully you can step on grass or dirt or something natural make sure your head is uncovered and your feet are touching the ground and spend 30 minutes with your eyes closed outside focusing on each foot and then the top of your head so we're going to do this rotating meditation I guess of focusing on one foot focusing on the second foot focusing on the top of our head so just rotate your awareness between these three things take a deep breath in and feel yourself just pulling in the energy from

the ground in the sky okay the purpose of this is just to create the tolerance of boredom so the other thing that we can do to help us be happy is just to learn how to tolerate boredom so I think this grounding practice is really really good because it gives us something to occupy the mind but it's something that on purpose I'm not giving you something that's going to be very occupying right I don't want you to be very occupied I want you to be bored you can also if you're if you've got balls of

steel or ovaries of Steel you can also try freeballing travel so this is something that's really dangerous right you could try going on a plane or going on a bus or going on a car and like not doing anything like don't take anything to do and just free ball it just like go for it like raw dog that stuff you know like it's not just give it a shot you're like oh my God Dr K that sounds terrible but well think about it like what are you really losing I mean you have thousands and thousands

and thousands and hours of playing video games and watching shows and stuff like that what like four hours of not watching something is going to kill you yeah Dr Gate's going to kill me oh my God so learn to tolerate boredom the better you are at tolerating boredom sitting with boredom letting those thoughts arise and letting them pass the more happy you will become and now we get to the third and arguably the hardest thing and the that will actually make everything else that I said completely false okay so now I'm going to torpedo my

whole argument so if you really want to be happy if we look at ourselves when we are in a moment of Happiness the cause of disruption is something called a lingering thought so you're sitting there maybe you're at Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever and you're having a good meal and then a thought Creeps in right so we already said that one-pointedness of the mind is what creates happiness fair enough but if we look at when we try to be happy we have these persistent lingering thoughts that will enter our mind they come from somewhere and

these lingering thoughts are really really dangerous because there are all kinds of desires that we have that are unfulfilled there are all kinds of goals that we set for ourselves there are all kinds of worries that we have about the future so the last thing to really consider is that you cannot be happy it's going to be very hard to be happy as long as those lingering thoughts are there now I'm not talking about depression I'm not talking about comparison I know it's kind of weird because like it's hard for me to Define this but

hopefully you know what I'm talking about there are some thoughts in your life that keep coming up about things that you should do that's what a lingering thought is it's persistent it's not a random fluctuation it is a persistent fluctuation and it's not something that is necessarily like depressive right it's not a thought that makes you feel really really terrible or really really anxious there are thoughts that connect and come from your heart and things that you know you should do things that make you feel sad and disappointed more disappointed with yourself than sad right

it's like I should really do this thing and the last thing that I'll tell y'all is that in order to make these lingering thoughts go away you've got two options you can either become a level 100 Yogi or you can do the thing and what I want yall to understand is When we struggle with these thoughts these lingering thoughts we struggle with procrastination I should do this oh like oh it's so hard that's not what I'm talking about should shouldn't enter the equation there's a different way to look at this which is do you want

to have a peaceful mind if the answer is yes you will never have it as long as that karma is incomplete as long as that thought is lingering it is incomplete you will never be happy you can level up to 100 level Yogi and then gain complete Detachment and be perfectly happy you can do that way that's way harder what's way easier is actually doing the thing so when you're quiet when you're got got some moment of Happ when you're one-pointed and that thought pops up the way that you need to approach that task is

do I want peace of mind I know this is going to sound insane for the rest of my life if I want peace of mind for the rest of my life it has to start with this lingering thought because if you always wanted to be a painter and you've wanted this for 15 years and it keeps coming up keeps coming up this will haunt you it has haunted you for your entire life so so then you must do the thing if you want a mind at peace now you may say but Dr K does this

mean I should just do whatever you know like should I just work really hard and fulfill all my goals no I want y'all to understand very clearly what I'm saying what I'm talking about is the state of happiness and what shatters the state of Happiness I'm not telling you to fulfill your goals so that you have a happy life I've worked with billionaires who have tried that doesn't work the Fulfillment of the goal is not what brings you happiness the Fulfillment of the goal makes the lingering thought go away and allows you to be one-pointed

for a moment in time Focus Dr K focus focus your mind the one exception could be the insertion of certain body Images could bring us happiness I don't know anyway [Music] m [Music]