Pursue truth, not happiness

People frequently tell me that their ultimate goal in life is happiness. And for a while, I thought I just wanted to be happy too. I pursued happiness as an end goal and evaluted opportunities by asking myself, “will this make me happy?”

What I’ve come to realize is that the pursuit of happiness isn’t good enough.

Happiness is fleeting. It’s temporary. It comes and goes through my short-term successes and achievements. It’s an emotion—a byproduct of my thoughts. I can think my way to happy by simply changing the way I think. I can engineer my own happiness by setting tangible goals and reaching them. Happiness is a chemical that I make.

But feeling deeply alive and aligned and intentional is very different. It goes way deeper than happiness and has to do with truth.

Truth is lasting. It’s bigger and deeper than any emotion. It urges me to courageously and continually awaken to it and adjust my life accordingly. It requires me to rethink everything and have patience through the darkness and light that is the evolution of life.

The more I seek the truth of who I am, why I exist, and the purpose I’m serving, the more intentional I am about how I spend my energy. And the more I seek to understand the truth of those around me, the environments I inhabit, and the places and cultures I immerse myself in, the more I’m able to align myself with the needs of our world.

Truth transcends me which is precisely why I practice and pursue it. And it’s why you should too.

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Thanks to Tim for inspiring this post and Kyle for reading the draft.