Stop Chasing Happiness

There once was an old grumpy man no one liked. Gloomy, complaining, always in a bad mood. The people in the village mostly just stayed away from him.

Then one day, a rumor started going around the village. “Did you hear? The old man is smiling today.”

Overcome by curiosity, they all surrounded the old man. “What changed?” they asked. “It’s simple,” he replied. “I turned eighty today. After eighty years of searching for happiness, I finally decided to give up. I’m just relaxing and enjoying life now.”

There’s a lesson to be learned in this folk story, especially right now. Most of us have a well-formed idea of what it’s going to take to make us happy, and that may not include social isolation and homeschooling our kids.

But if we could just relax and accept our current reality, would we be able to find the joy in it?

We talk with friends, family, clients, and candidates every day who are struggling with adjusting to this new normal, and are seeing a lot of stories of adaptation coming out of it. Perhaps the key to our happiness lies partially in resilience?