I've Decided to Live 120 Years by Ilchi Lee

Author:Ilchi Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Best Life Media
Published: 2017-10-03T14:52:29+00:00

New Sources of Happiness

The first reason many people feel unhappy is that they are dissatisfied with the environment they face. Perhaps they didn’t get the opportunities they wanted, suffered from poor family relations, or faced financial difficulties their whole life. Would they have been happier if they had spent their time in a good environment, if none of those troubles had been present? Not necessarily, which is something you have probably seen for yourself, directly or indirectly. Many of those who have plenty of wealth and power, those who have grasped success, including popular celebrities, consider themselves unhappy. Even with a good house, car, and partner—commonly thought to be conditions for happiness—tedium and boredom are bound to come. Why? They have failed to discover something granting them true meaning and motivation in life, something that allows them to live every day with heart-pounding passion. This lack of a sense of purpose is the second reason people feel they are not happy.

After we retire, we have an incredible amount of time to use as we want until we die, but all that time feels overwhelming, and we don’t know how in the world to spend it. Assuming that you will live 35 years after retiring and you have eight hours a day to engage in meaningful activity, that comes to about 100,000 productive hours. How will you use 100,000 hours in a way that’s substantial and rewarding? If you spend monotonous days in old age eating good food in a good house without much happening every day for decades, could we call that a truly meaningful, happy life? Is there no way to live our lives so that when we close our eyes on our final day, we can say, “I really lived a good life. I feel fulfilled and really proud of myself”?

There is. It means transforming our ideas about happiness. And it means discovering new sources of happiness.

Another word for happiness is joy. There are different kinds of joy. Basically, there are joys that come from satisfying instinctual desires, like the joy of eating and the joy obtained through sex. On the next level are two kinds of joy—one that comes from possession and one that comes from control. Up to this point, we’re talking about joys that animals also feel. These joys are deeply associated with the lower dahnjon or lower chakras, which generally control the energies of the body and desire.

In youth, desires for food, sex, possession, and control are powerful. But continuing to cling only to these joys when you’re older will bring misfortune upon yourself. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t pursue such joys any longer. You can still enjoy food and sex, and you can exercise ownership and control through economic activities. However, if you seek to relieve your boredom only through the joys that come from indulging and satisfying such desires, a meaningful life and true happiness will gradually grow more distant.

Old age is a time to find new sources of happiness. Instead

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