Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye.

Does the very act of pursuing happiness rob us of the opportunity to actually experience it. I ask because I've been taught that we cause our own stress

whenever we want to be anywhere other than where we are.

If it's cold outside, we wish it it was warmer and when it's hot we want it cooler.

It reminds me of what my uncle once said. I'm not asking for too much. I just want one dollar more than I have,

which perfectly illustrates the

endlessness of the vicious cycle. Think about it. At a certain point in our

lives we dreamed of being where we currently are, and yet now that we're here, we wish to be somewhere else.

If not physically, then in our spiritual evolution, relationships, careers, etc.

It doesn't help that many of the things designed to make our lives

more convenient or enjoyable sometimes have the opposite effect in the long run.

And I'm not just talking about how I've lost my ability to memorize phone numbers ever since speed dialing was invented,

or how Netflix is killing our productivity. I'm talking about how whenever we are introduced to something new and exciting, it makes our lives without

those things seem duller in comparison. We were perfectly fine before cell phones and the internet, but now that we have them, can you imagine living without?

Don't get me wrong, I love Google as much as the next guy, and I'm not suggesting these things are evil,

or that we need to go back to living in caves.

I'm just curious if we are robbing ourselves of contentment by chasing happiness.

If we were to compare this socially acceptable behavior with addiction, it's clear that as our

craving for creature comforts get stronger, we keep having to increase the stimuli to reach the same high.

People all over the world sleep on the floor for example and they don't suffer from the spine and back problems that we experience in the West with all the temperpetic and

postropedic options that we have. What's your sleep number? I think the only way

to combat this issue would be to learn to crave what we already have, if that makes sense.

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