The following provides a few definitions of ‘happiness’.

Happiness

Happiness is an inner quality; a state of mind; it is peace of mind.  If your mind is at peace, you are happy.  If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy.  If you have everything the world can give – pleasure, possessions, power – but lack peace of mind, you can never be happy.

Normal Happiness

Normal happiness is the belief that happiness exists outside of ourselves; it is a matter of the ego-self looking to the world to determine happiness.

Normal happiness is something than comes and goes.  As we work to achieve it, we can increase it to a degree, but much of what gives us peace of mind is out of our control.  So, normal happiness can come and go.

True Happiness

True happiness is the belief that happiness exists within ourselves; it is a matter of the ego-self looking to one’s true-self to determine happiness.

True happiness is happiness that continues in you over time.  It is independent of the things that are currently happening in your life.  True happiness rest in our spirituality and must be developed over time.  To obtain true happiness requires effort to change the way we are in the world.  The following articulates some of these changes:

Being limited by our beliefs TO living beyond our beliefs
Holding onto the past TO letting go of the past
Living an unfulfilling life TO living a meaningful and fulfilling life
Improving and accepting ourselves
Looking for and giving love
Sharing happiness
Simplifying our life

Notes

Dr. Mark Atkinson  has an interesting view of happiness that seems to correlate with the Bible.  See his website for information.

References

References

• Google: happiness definition
• https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/happiness
• In Defense of Sadness: Happiness Is Overrated by Eric G. Wilson
• The Trouble with Happiness by Jill Suttie
• Google: normal happiness
• Google: true happiness definition
• https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/true_happiness
• An Introduction to True Happiness by Dr. Mark Atkinson
• What Is True Happiness? by Sandra Pawula
• 54 Ways to Increase Your Happiness Set Point by Amit Amin
• Discover True Happiness ; Dr. Mark Atkinson
• Mark Atkinson; Self-Leadership
• True Happiness; Amazon book
• The Power of Spiritual Intelligence; “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Teilhard de Chardin
• Look at the Happiness section of a themes list.

The following provides a few definitions of ‘self’.

Physical-Self

Our physical-self is our physical body including our brain, heart, and senses; everything that physically makes us who we are on this earth.

Ego-Self

Our ego-self is our physical-self with the inclusion of our awareness of our environment.  This awareness is what we perceive through our physical senses as modified by the model of the world that our brain has built by using that same information.

When we are born, we are aware only of the information provided by our senses.  As we grow our brain integrates the information it receives into a data store that provides a model of our environment.  Our brain never has access to our environment directly; only through our senses.  Once it has built a model of its perceived environment, it interprets new information received with-respect-to this model.

Our brain, using the model it has built, reacts to the environment.  This means that we react to each new experience in a way that depends not only on the current experience, but also on our past experiences.  Our awareness of our environment depends on the information provided by our senses and how our brain interprets them given the model it has built.

This has profound effect on who we are, as we all have different internal models of the world.  How any given one of us will respond in any given situation depends not only on our physical-self, but also our ego-self that we have become because of the experiences we have had in life.  This difference can be seen in the same individual by considering them when they were a child versus when they have grown into an adult.

Some people refer to the ego-self as the real-self.  They say that the real-self is who we are.  It is how we think, how we feel, look, and act.  The real-self can be seen by others, but because we have no way of truly knowing how others view us, the real-self is our self-image (how we think people see us).  This is consistent with the above definition of ego-self.

True-Self

The true-self is an idealized version of who we are.  Different people have different ideas about what this could mean.  A couple of ideas are described in the following:

True-Self Is Who We Want to Be: It is an idealized image that we develop over time, based on what we learn and experience.  This could include things like what our parents taught us, what we admire in others, what society fosters, or what we happen to think is in our best interest.

True-Self Is Our Spiritual Self: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience –Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  Consider that we have a body and a spirit.  Our spirit interacts with our environment through our ego-self.  Our spirit can be considered our “true-self”.

In either case above, the true-Self is an idealized version of our ego-self.  I prefer the spiritual version since the “who we want to be” approach seems flawed because we have a flawed ego-self postulating this, which seems would lead to a flawed “who we want to be”; a conundrum.  Whereas the spiritual version is at least compatible with the plan of salvation as expressed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You must decide this for yourself; there are likely also other ideas to consider.

The bottom line takeaway is expressed at the beginning of this section independent of what the underlying mechanism is for implementing it.

Quotes

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Teilhard de Chardin

“The primary purpose of life is to wake up to the presence of our spiritual being and allow it to flow into our doings.” – Eckhart Tolle

References

• The True Self: A psychological concept distinct from the self
• The Power of Spiritual Intelligence
• The True-Self, The False-Self and the Ego
• Mark Atkinson; Self-Leadership

The specific definition of goal with-respect-to this post is:

A goal is a desired outcome toward which effort is expended to achieve.

An objective is a goal that defines an increment of progress toward a main/greater goal.

The following provides ideas to consider in formulating goals.

SMART Goal

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Based.  A SMART goal is really a high-level plan for achieving a main goal and its elements are objectives to be met to accomplish it.  The following is an example.

Main Goal: Write a novel.

The SMART goal objectives might be:

• Specific: Use social media to write a minimum of 150 pages.
• Measurable: Write one chapter a month, or 3-5 pages per week.
• Attainable: Create a story design and use it to write the story which will be self-published.
• Relevant: Using social media will help establish a readership.
• Time-Based: Complete the manuscript and have it ready to publish in one year.

The SMART goal following from these objectives can be written as:

To establish a readership, write a 150-page novel on social media by writing one chapter per month (3-5 pages per week).  The book will be completed in one year and will be self-published.

Type of Goals

Examples of goal types are:

• The need to win a competition, the love of another, etc.
• The need to stop someone, something bad from happening, etc.
• The need to escape
• The need to deliver a message, one’s self, an item, get to a destination, etc.
• The need to retrieve a magic ring, a hidden or lost treasure, a lost love, etc.

Categories of Goals

Examples of goal categories from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs are:

• Physiological: Air, Water, Food, Clothing, Shelter
• Safety and Security
  • Protection against assault or injury
  • Adequate money
  • Steady emplorment
  • Good health
  • Protection of private property
• Love and Belonging: Friendship, Romance, Intimacy, Family
• Esteem and Recognition: Independence, Compensation, Respect, Promotion, Credit, Gratitude, Appreciation
• Self-Actualization
  • Higher education
  • Spiritual enlightenment
  • Artistic pursuits
  • Travel and experience
  • Altruistic and charitable contributions to others

Online References

The following references provide information about specific goals:

• 101 Lifetime Goals by Jack Canfield
• Popular Life Goals
• 100 Life Goals List by Tal Gur

The specific definition of truth with-respect-to this post is:

True means that something is in accordance with fact or reality.

Proposition is a statement or assertion that expresses a judgement or opinion (e.g., love leads to happiness).

Truth is a proposition that is accepted as true (e.g., scientific truths; fundamental truths about mankind).

To determine if something is a truth it is necessary to identify the proposition that is to be evaluated and then determine what the evaluation is.  Therefore, there is a difference between what any given person or group says is truth and whether it is truth or not.

Human beings can never know if something is truth.  They can only evaluate the proposition in various situations and assess its truth for themselves.  It is like saying that gravity will always be.  It is our experience that gravity always has been.  Therefore, we conjecture that it will always be.  We go about our lives believing that will never float off from the earth, but we don’t really know for sure what will happen.  In this case, we have scientific evidence that leaves essentially nothing to doubt in this regard, but still there is just what we have learned over time that supports our belief that this is a truth.

Humans interpret the reality around them via their senses.  What they consider to be reality is just an interpretation of reality provided by their senses.  This leads to the sayings:

Truth is in the eye of the beholder.

“Every kind of ignorance in the world all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see and then we believe our interpretation of it, we don’t even know we are making an interpretation most of the time. We think this is reality.”  –Robert Anton Wilson

“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.”  –Anaïs Nin

Knowing truth is subjective.  Care must be taken in believing that we know truth.  It is better to understand our level of certainty of its being truth.  This life must be lived by faith.