Most of us spend our lives chasing pleasure — the next good meal, holiday, or purchase — believing it will make us happy. Yet if we look closely, pleasure and happiness aren’t the same.
Happiness isn’t something we create; it’s something we uncover. Imagine a white wall hidden under grime. When you clean it, you don’t create whiteness — you reveal what was always there. In the same way, our natural state is peaceful and content. Thoughts, worries, and cravings are just the grime that covers it.
If pleasure truly brought happiness, the richest people would be the happiest. But we all know times when we’ve been deeply happy despite discomfort — laughing in the rain on a camping trip, or during a tough workout. And we’ve all felt unhappy in the middle of comfort — that expensive holiday that somehow didn’t deliver.
So if happiness isn’t caused by pleasure, what blocks it? The answer is craving — wanting something we don’t have, or wanting to escape what we do. Craving is the root of unhappiness. The less we crave, the more our natural happiness shines through.
There are two ways to reduce craving. One is to keep getting everything we want — which never lasts. The other is to rest in acceptance: to be at peace with this moment, exactly as it is. That’s the real purpose of meditation.
When you stop chasing and start accepting, you discover happiness isn’t somewhere else — it’s already here, quietly waiting beneath it all.
For more detail listen to my extended blog below.
