Why should anyone care about dharma or creating a healthy society? The motivation comes from the connection between a healthy, dharma-based society and the pursuit of happiness. If we all pursued that which would actually make us happy, we would naturally evolve into a healthy society that was conducive to everyone’s happiness. The problem is that since we do not know the nature of happiness, we pursue wealth, power and beauty as our best known indicators of happiness – the narrative we live by is that as you acquire more and more of these, your happiness will increase. Unfortunately, this is not the case, but in the absence of any better wisdom, this is the best we know how.
I think it is fair to say that we all want to be happy….or happier. This is an instinct built into us. It is what propels us to ‘progress’ in life. What we ought to do is follow our own happiness….become aware of what makes you feel happy and do more of it….even if it is not what the media portrays as the source of happiness. Every time you do something that gives you a deeper sense of satisfaction, make note of it and do more of it. It is a simple idea but requires us to ‘unlearn’ our current ‘conditioning’ about happiness.
