Taking 3 weeks off everything to understand happiness

[Jordan]

I took 3 weeks off work and plan to experience as much happiness as possible and understand it as much as possible. My first day off is July 5th. I would like to practice being happy even when I have a strong desire for things to be a different way than they are.

I understand happiness to be a state and not an emotion. It is a state where you are easily able to accept things the way they are and feel good about them. You can be happy while being sad if you accept the sadness and you are not absorbed by it. You may need to observe as if from a distance and not define yourself as someone that was wronged and is now sad. Instead see the beauty of the sadness and become the experience itself without conceptualizing and wrongness with how things are. I also think you should be able to desire something very strongly and accept the sensation of desire without taking action to fulfill it. You should be able to maintain a state of happiness even when in physical pain or in desire to have things a different way by accepting fully that it is true that this desire exists exactly as it is. 

I plan to spend most of my time walking in remote parks. I will do some sitting and meditating or contemplating. I will give myself 30 minutes of phone screen time per day and leave my computer off except on Saturdays. On the Saturdays, I will play a video game with my uncle and brother for 1.5 hours or so. On Sundays I will go rock climbing for 2 hours. Daily I will walk a lot and do 10 minutes of pushups and pullups as many as I can do. I will share my experience here when I am done July 27th.

[Puer Aeternus]

Yess Jordan touch that grass, yess Jordan have a fun time! It does actually sound like a grand time. All that time alone, no thoughts  head empty, interesting things shall happen. 

But yes! You can hold both at the same time. It's how I process things.. holding the emotion.. be it anger, sadness, etc. While maintaining awareness. The emotion is there but you're not attached, you're able to observe and release it because it feels more separated from you! 

Removing distractions can be a great way ramp up your awareness levels. The emotions can more easily grip us in totality when we are busy/doing unconscious things.

Hope it all goes well for ya!