ACTualized Living W/ Erik

What's going on? Cadre family here again, coming to you live from this Wednesday evening. I know I've been going on Saturdays for a little bit, but changing it up here to join you this Wednesday back on the actualized living train here. And as a reminder, this is a time where we talk about what are the actual steps to making changes in your life, to engage in a more, well, fulfilling life as is fit for your circumstances, for what you're going through. You know, today I've been dwelling on this.

This thing which is. Right. What. What keeps us stuck? What keeps us stuck in the same place when we feel run down, when we feel like we don't have any options, what gets us into that place? And, you know, this weird kind of thought came up because it's not a. It's not something we often spend a lot of time pondering, but it has to do with our happiness. And when I say that often, you know, what we think of is, well, my aim of becoming mentally healthy, becoming, well, often has something to do with being happier.

Right. There's a problem in this, though, and the problem is, and you'll come to light as soon as I ask you to think about a time that you were happy, is that that time came, it was there in that circumstance, whatever that circumstance might have been, and then it went. And the reason that is, is because happiness, at least the way in which we often think about it, is an emotion. It's an emotion we get from a circumstance, a series of events, a response to our environment. And that happiness doesn't quite sustain much longer than the context that it's in.

For example, you work to graduate from high school, you get your graduation, you grab that diploma, you're happy. The next day, the next week comes around, and all of a sudden, that happiness starts to go away. It's back to real life. We've kind of been indoctrinated into this idea in the west especially, that the pinnacle, the mountaintop, what makes a good life is happiness, is that feeling, that emotion that comes and goes. I think you and I can both see how that's maybe a not very reliable goal source of well being in our lives.

It's not consistent. It's not something we can stake a whole lot onto. And it doesn't have a lot of room for other things that we will experience in our life. Pain, disappointment, sadness, fear, intrigue, adventure, uncertainty. And so if our goal is to be this feeling of happiness, we start to avoid the things that we know definitely don't make us feel happy. That poses an issue. And that poses an issue because, well, a lot of the most important things in our life, opportunities for growth or change, happen when we don't feel very happy, when we feel maybe sad.

Anxiety is another great one, right? We start vacuuming out the value or purpose in these other areas of our life because we put so much stake in feeling a certain way that we can't really control. And maybe we go out of our way to find ways to make ourselves feel that way, these temporary opportunities of pleasure. So what if there's a different way? Right? If happiness, if this feeling isn't the direction that sustains wellness, what's another place that we can look that might bring us a source of wellness, a sustained, more consistent place that incorporates all that life has to offer, the so called good and the bad?

And there's this greek word that I think encapsulates this well, and I'm going to butcher it, but eudaimonia. Eudaimonia, it's a greek word, so you got to think about it for a minute. But eudaimonia and this word eudaimonia is a different type of happiness. And it's a happiness that's not based on a feeling. It's not based on a reward center in your brain that swipes through TikTok and gets a bump of dopamine. It's a happiness that has to do with fulfillment and that has to do with purpose. It has to do with the trajectory in which you live your life rather than the feelings that come up at each little point on that timeline.

And so there's three points to eudenomia. I think I said that, right? And this type of happiness is based on three main things. The first thing is virtue. Living according to your virtues, the things that you find as most important. Often we sacrifice our virtues for the sake of a feeling of happiness. So, virtues, what's valuable? What's important to you? A second thing is focusing on what you can control and accepting what you can. Part of being able to find fulfillment is recognizing that life is full of things we can't control.

If we dwell on those things, especially when we're focused on feeling happy, we're going to constantly be at war, in struggle, right? With ourselves and with. With our environment, with our world. If we learn to accept those things, we can kind of almost surf the waves of changes in our lives. And the third thing is responsibility. Only you are responsible for your happiness, not the feeling, but the fulfillment, the willingness to take action despite not always feeling happy. But knowing that it serves something more important than your feeling of happiness.

And in that, we find a deeper sense of true purpose and true happiness. And so this may make you think, what things have I been doing out of a desire to feel a certain way? And what things have I been avoiding out of that same desire? And maybe the fulfillment I'm actually looking for, the happiness I'm actually looking for is on the other side of a few storms I've been running away from because they don't feel great. And so I'd encourage you to think about, you know, what is truly most important to me.

What do I find as virtuous? What do I find as a priority? And has that priority been met when. When you have a social opportunity, right. And it's really important to you that you connect socially with others, but you have this mind that likes to tell you, get in the way of, oof. You might have to open yourself up to be accepted. Right. You might have to be vulnerable with others, and that might open you up to a feeling of hurt. Well, if it's more important for me to feel happy, I don't know if that risk is worth it.

But now if we switch that around and say it's more important that I connect with other people, well, now maybe it's worth some discomfort, some vulnerability, experiencing the possibility of hurt for what I've deemed as fulfilling my connections with others. So with that, I'm gonna leave you for today, and I hope that you grab something from this and go forth and see where that makes a change. See where you can prioritize something other than a feeling for your own fulfillment. Enjoy where you're at today and take care.

Bye.