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Stop Trying To Be Happy. It’s Making You Miserable
Happiness is not external. Instead, it comes from within.
In September 1942, a young psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl found himself imprisoned within a Nazi concentration camp. His head was shaven, he was given a serial number, and all of his personal belongings were taken away. Any evidence of his previous identity was quickly removed.
Many people around him became extremely hopeless as they started to realize their inevitable fate. Everything they’d previously known and loved had been taken away. All of a sudden, their life didn’t have any meaning or purpose. But Frankl refused to give up. Despite being trapped in the middle of the Holocaust, he tried to find meaning in all the suffering. He tried to find hope.
This is a true story that was documented in Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning. It’s something that I re-read every few months as it has so many fascinating insights that have completely changed my way of thinking. Specifically, this extract:
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the…
