There is an ultimate question towards own happiness. That question is actually simple: “Why are you doing it?”. Answer to that question will lead towards who are you doing it for? Answer to that question should lead you towards how much of what are you doing you are doing actually, truly, really really for yourself :)? Because many times, we are actually taking on too much and being our worst judge seeking approvals of others. That does not sound like the path towards our own happiness. That sounds like a path towards making happy everybody around us happy except us. But if we are not happy, if we are doing things for wrong reasons, reasons we do not even understand and are simply driven by them, we cant never be truly happy. And if we are not happy, everyone around us will sooner or later be effected by our moods, by our state. You can pretend happiness only for so long but eventually you will crack and become miserable. Some people then treat it by more work, more beating, some by alcohol, some by physical pain (why do you think ultra-trails were invented :). We choose different artificial “cures” to our internal pain, mask them well but actually they are not cures. They are just patches, Ibuprofen for our mind and body because many times we do not understand root causes of our suffering. Of our own beating. But we can turn it around. We can start asking the right questions and honestly, we need help with that. We need right questions to be asked, because questions are the answers. Starting with why and for who is a good start on this root cause healing journey. It might be scary at first, decisions we all have to take along this journey need courage, but eventually it will lead to our true happiness. And that is worth every bit of courage we have.

Many times we are lost in our approval flywheel not doing things for the right "why". There is actually a great testing question you can ask  anyone to find out, if they do things truly for themself or for approval of others. I call this testing question "approval junkie test". Here is the simple question:

I have written a short post about understanding your motives. In that post I have written about  the idea of understanding why we do things we do. Are we doing them to get approval from others or are we truly doing them for us. Understanding this is in my opinion one of the keys to happiness. So why is this post any different then the one I have written? I want to talk about one strong addiction. Addiction to approval. At some point in our life all parents and closest friends made a mistake. Many times not intentionally. Mistake that hit us deeply. Mistake that defined us for the eternity and beyond. Mistake we have stored deep down into our bone morrow. From that moment on, our insecurity has been stored there and has been manifested through approvals we seek. Difficult childhood, not getting enough love or attention? Psychologically abusive father that has never been satisfied with anything you have done? Not smart enough, not fast enough? All those emotions are stored deeply inside us and as we grow up they manifest in all our insecurities. In all approvals we seek from others. 

When you start any endeavor being passionate  is not enough. Passion is just an emotion. Emotions just come and go like yearly seasons. You need to understand deeply why your passion is important to you and ideally how it fulfills your true core beliefs and values. If the passion is linked to your core values and beliefs and gives you some sense of purpose, it is easier (but not easy) to be resilient. And when you connect the resiliency and your passion together, you have one of many formulas for success One of many but very strong one. Now the biggest mystery for you to solve in this life reincarnation is to find out what your passion is. Everything else would come with it and you will get eventually answer to the deep philosophical question we all ask: "what is our purpose?". Maybe it is to find our passion and serve good that is bigger then us. To search for our purpose through our passion. 

Living in the present moment is a noble thing. It is definitely better said then done because our attention is constantly stolen by our modern life reactivity, our fears and insecurities. One way we can face it is with conscious awarenes of what is truly happening around us. It used to be too abstract for me to access present moment just by thinking it is a present moment. I had to find intent first and then, I truly started to access this magical moment. How? Simply by explaining what is going on in plain words. When it rained, I described that rain drops are hitting ground with certain cadence, splashing when hitting the ground. When light bulb was shining, I have in my head described that a stream of fotons are dropping at my eye bulb with different intensity. These short descriptions acted as a booting procedures of a computer for me to then access the present moment. After that it was easy to live the moment at least for a while. So in order to access the present moment, you can use this "booting procedure" as your intent. It can do wonders.

From the time I was 13, I became obsessed with work and self-improvement. I have found computer programming early on as a field I could have utilised both my creativity and fight my insecurities. By being able to know more than people at my age, I have felt better for myself. It is a funny feeling. You know you are still dumb shit, but everybody around you thinks you are this wiz kid. Over the years, I have moved from programming to business, from business to trading, from trading to management and leadership building companies and projects from ground up. I am proud of my achievements, but I have also stretched it too much, too far. By thinking I am invincible, I have made myself a success junkie. A plan junkie. A framework and principles junkie. Some people in my shoes, would be the most happy people on earth, but I have to admit, I payed the price. 

Pain is a great teacher. Both physical and psychological pain gives you clues. It teaches you couple of important points:

Breath has unique healing capabilities. If you breathe deeply, you clean your body energy and replenish your organs. You give life to your cells. You recycle the bad and get the good. I have been having long term gut issues and every time I deploy deep breathing, my conditions improve. So how can you breathe when you feel pain? Just breathe into your pain whenrever you feel it, deeply. Imagine that you are breathing in a strength and healing white light into your wound. Breathe out back through the wound and imagine that the light has been transformed into white gas full of energy and love. Repeat it twice a day and every time your will be eating large meal. Create condition in which your body can heal because together with food, breathe is life.

Listening to your body can be sometimes difficult. Especially when nobody taught us tuning in. You know, when doctors and health specialist tells you, “just listen to your body”. I think 70% of the population just have no fucking clue what they are talking about. What do you mean listen to your body? I dont even know what fucking frequency I should listen to. I mean I know when I am death tired, but isnt that just part of life. Isnt that too late already? Didnt the “successful” tell us that you can sleep when you are death? Actually over the last 12months I have learned that tuning-in to listen to your body is a skill like any other and it did not come naturally to me, I have to learned it. In order to learn it I needed to do it the opposite way. Only after I started doing all the good stuff and build consistency, I have learned to differentiate between good and bad with greater detail.  This is how I was able to start reading signals of my body with better precision, by building consistency in how good feels like. It’s not perfect, it is a journey.

I am the worst judge of myself. The toughest, most scary judge of all. Me. When I am scared, I judge myself for being scared. When I eat too much or to little, I am judging. When I am not patient or I am to slow to act. When I am suppose to do something and I didnt. And on and on and on. What an utter nonsense. This can get you over time only to a mad house. Your reality is only your own. You are creater of it but that inner voice is constantly there. I once have heard that you can never get rid of feeling emotions, but you can change relationship with them. That who is aware of fear, can’t be fearful. That who is aware of anxiety, can’t be anxious. Its easier said than done. How can one keep himself in this high state of awareness? I believe by practice. Day to day, transition by transition. Every time anything that is taking your attention appears, try ty be aware of it. Thats it. No more. Like the observer but with no obligation. This practice over time builds your ability to change your relationship with whatever is stealing your attention. And for fuck sake, dont judge it! There is no right or wrong, there is just a way of being present when you can.