Looking back at 2019 to think forward: Happiness.

Sharing some of the best content around content mindfulness I looked at this year. Particularly ones I thought they might be clues for bigger things to think about. And this one really made me think. Steve Cutts’ Happiness. A video about finding happiness in things.

Rat Race Video “Happiness”

Star Wars fans will remember the moment in Return of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker, as he is about to strike down his father Darth Vader in battle, stops for a moment and glances at his cybernetic hand.

As if waking up, he then looks back to see the frayed wiring of Vader’s robotic hand. At that moment, he mentally steps back, understanding that he’s about to follow his father’s fate to the Dark Side of the force.

I first saw this video earlier this year, and I’ve looked at it a few times. Each time always reminds me to avoid the path of mindlessly trying to chase happiness through products and money.

“Happiness,” the animated short film by Steve Cutts reminds me of that dread and undefinable frustration that I once felt from continually chasing every promise of long-term happiness through products, celebrities, and gurus connected to products.

Ironically, it’s the chase for happiness outside of us that fuels the unhappiness inside of us. A cycle that keeps us moving and hustling but not making progress; like being in a hamster wheel.

What exacerbates that unhappiness is is the long, hard dredging work some of us do, eight to 14 hours a day, to fund our exercise in futility.. Especially if the work we do is only about trying to buy happiness.

Not against hard work or making money. But work is about turning your time into money. How you spend what you’ve earned matters. If you are spending on things that don’t make happy or to cope with a job you hate, what’s the point?