Happiness comes from solving problems. The keyword here is “solving.” If you’re avoiding your problems or feel like you don’t have any problems, then you’re going to make yourself miserable. If you feel like you have problems that you can’t solve, you will likewise make yourself miserable. The secret sauce is in the solving of the problems, not in not having problems in the first place. To be happy we need something to solve. Happiness is therefore a form of action; it’s an activity, not something that is passively bestowed upon you, not something that you magically discover in a top-ten article on the Huffington Post or from any specific guru or teacher. It doesn’t magically appear when you finally make enough money to add on that extra room to the house. You don’t find it waiting for you in a place, an idea, a job — or even a book, for that matter. Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress — the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

Happiness comes from solving problems. [...] Happiness is a constant work-in-progress. The solutions to today's problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow's problems.

You don’t achieve happiness by getting rid of your problems – you achieve it by learning from them.

Happiness is not the absence of problems; it's the ability to deal with them.

True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

Happiness is the absence of personal problems.

You can remove the idea of personal, the idea of problems, or limit and solve the problems.

Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress — the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

The first is to develop a taste for having problems. Behind our urge to race through every obstacle or challenge, in an effort to get it "dealt with," there's usually the unspoken fantasy that you might one day finally reach the state of having no problems whatsoever. As a result, most of us treat the problems we encounter as doubly problematic: first because of whatever specific problem we're facing; and second because we seem to believe, if only subconsciously, that we shouldn't have problems at all. Yet the state of having no problems is obviously never going to arrive.

It is not in the resolution of problems that you will find happiness. If you want to find that happiness, if you want to find that joy, then find that one thing that is within inside of you. That is you, that is your reality, that is your core that can bring you that joy. This disparity has existed and existed and existed, yet people keep saying, 'No, these people don't know what they're talking about.'

Whatever your problems are, the concept is the same: solve problems; be happy. Unfortunately,
for many people, life doesn’t feel that simple. That’s because they fuck things up in at least one of two
ways:
1. Denial. Some people deny that their problems exist in the first place. And because they deny
reality, they must constantly delude or distract themselves from reality. This may make them feel
good in the short term, but it leads to a life of insecurity, neuroticism, and emotional repression.
2. Victim Mentality. Some choose to believe that there is nothing they can do to solve their
problems, even when they in fact could. Victims seek to blame others for their problems or blame
outside circumstances. This may make them feel better in the short term, but it leads to a life of
anger, helplessness, and despair.

Choices that you make out of inability are not life solutions. An inability to be joyful by your own nature can make the simplest issues in life seem like highly complex problems. Right now being peaceful and joyful is made out to be the most significant problem in human existence. In pursuit of human happiness, we are ripping the planet apart.

Don’t run away from things that are unpleasant in order to embrace things that are pleasant. Put your hands in the earth. Face the difficulties and grow new happiness.

You don't have to get rid of a problem to overcome it.

Happiness (if you want it):*

1. Meet basic needs

2. Avoid cheap dopamine

3. Leave the past alone

4. Limit desires to ones achievable at the edge of your capability

5. Find something beyond yourself (mission, children, God)

*Most people want something else.