Dr. Chetan Walia (00:00):

Welcome to Being Brilliant. The podcast designed to ignite your fire, challenge your limits, and inspire you to take action like never before. Hello, I'm Chean Walia, and each episode is your spark, a jolt of energy to move you from where you are to where you want to be. This isn't just about listening, it's about doing. It's about stepping into your brilliance, unleashing your potential, and making every day a breakthrough. So if you ready to rise, let's dive in and make it happen. In this episode, funders enjoy where is my happiness. We are exploring the difference between fleeting, fun and lasting joy. Most of us chase distractions escapes and temporary pleasures thinking to bring us happiness. But do they together we'll uncover the truth about what it really means to be happy. How do embrace passion and progress and why true joy is found in peace and presence.

(00:59)
Let's get started now. Fun isn't joy. Party drinks, shops, splurge. You can do as much of it as you want. It ain't happiness, certainly not beyond the event. Social upkeep, hangovers, credit card bills. These effects don't sound happy to me. One is what you do for distraction, escape, occupation. You've experienced joy, true moment of bliss. You just don't recognize it. Let me take you to happiness. Have you ever been in front of a beautiful mountain or seaside or anything marvelous in nature that just stunts you into silence? What happened in that moment? You saw the beauty of nature, the enormity of its presence, and in that moment you went silent, thoughtless being that moment was as complete a moment of life that you will ever experience. No, you weren't grinning from ear to ear. There was no glaring music. There was no dancing, there was no tequila, there was silence.

(01:57)
You heard nothing, but you heard every sound of nature, the whistling of the trees, the splash of the waves, the crunch of the leaves, the squelch of the mud under your feet, and you became one withered. That was joy. That was bliss. It's silent. It's omnipresent. It's beautiful. It's peaceful. It gives you no hangover. It doesn't make anyone broke. It doesn't scream out loud. I am joy. No, it's a moment. It's a moment of silence, not of roaring laughters, my friend. We don't even recognize our truest moments of joy. We don't realize what makes us happy. We don't understand what brings us to silence in life. We understand pleasure, though. We understand escapes. We understand starry displays. We understand loudness. We seek attention. We seek appreciation. We seek recognition. We seek belongingness. We seek gratification. And we think, wow, that's a happy life, really. You think Michael Jackson was enjoying his drugs when he died of overdose, or Whitney Houston was loving her life when she drowned in the bathtub.

(03:02)
Or Robin Williams, the man who made the world laugh was so fucking happy that he killed himself. Most people confuse having fun as being happy. Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Heath Ledger, Marlin Mund, Monroe, prince Jimi Hendrix, wow, dude, party, highest phenomenal, must be so fucking happy that it killed them all. Remember this, what isn't scalable isn't sustainable. What isn't scalable isn't sustainable. That is common sense. And therefore, whatever your idea of fun is, is total crap. You can't scale it. You can't live it. It's a lie. It's a distraction. What are you really running from? I'm not saying don't party and don't have fun, do it, but first, confront life. What are you distracting yourself from? Where do you need boost to alter the state of your mind? What is it that you want to suppress? Why are we so afraid to live? You know, what happened when you were born?

(04:02)
Have you seen a baby being born around you? What happens? There are celebrations, there's joy, there's laughter. There are tears of joy. There's the silence of the mother who sees a precious baby for the first time. There is the silent wow of the Father who holds this precious child for the first time. Everyone marvels at the tiny toes, the crinkled skin, the innocence of the sleep. Everyone wanted a piece of you because you were born precious, born marvelous. You were placed on a pester. You are literally worshiped. You were that moment of happiness, that moment of silence. The silent force from the nature that stunned everyone into a moment of joy. What happened to that child? The child who was born joyful. Oh, we killed it. Didn't we systematically killed you? Yep. Precious guilt, fears, inhibition, circumstances, conflicts. Life gone woo. But the inner voice in that child says, I want to be happy again.

(05:07)
And his friends who are in the same misery say, yeah, baby, come. Let's have some fun and fun. They have, but where's the happiness? You find happiness in peace, silence, beauty. You don't seek it. You be in it. Happiness isn't being passionate, passionate, not as you understand it, but in what passion means. Passion means the end of suffering. It means to confront yourself in the mirror, to face life, to see truth, to go through your suffering. And then what emerges is pure passion. Passion for life, for everything that you do for your actions. And that passion is joy. It's forever. It's not an event because it becomes life. How will you become passionate if you keep escaping and distracting yourself from suffering? You will not. We've been raised to somehow feel that to suffer is bad. That suffering is a curse. That suffering is a pity.

(06:04)
So let's run away from it. Let's watch a movie or chill out at a pub instead. Stop it. Suffering isn't a curse. It's life. It's reality. Go through it because unless you do, you don't discover passion. Suffering isn't about choosing pain for pain's sake. It's about facing what's real, no matter how hard it is, because that's where passion is born. And until you discover passion, life is full of effort and struggle and passion, my friend is effortless. You've seen it when you're doing something you love, you lose track of time, you lose sense of space, you'll probably lose your thoughts itself. That is happiness in progress. Joy isn't in the destination. It's in making progress toward that destination. Whatever you want out of life, as long as you make progress, you'll have happiness. And progress stops when you get distracted. When you give up, when you fail to confront the truth and instant chase the escape, do you get it?

(07:07)
Your fun could well be the enemy of your joy. Fun is what you experience in that moment. Happiness is the feeling after the fact. Eating dessert after every meal is fun. I get it. But most people would be happier if they have a 15 pounds lighter. Learning something isn't fun. It takes years to become a master of a skill. But you are happy afterwards. Writing makes a writer happy. Composing makes a musician happy. Acting makes an actor happy. Playing makes a sports person happy. Well, lemme tell you a secret, it isn't fun doing it. It can be frustrating to write. It can be painful to compose. It can be infuriating to act in a bad play and sports can break your spirit. Pain is reality. Suffering is reality. Pleasure is the escape, my friend, and don't fall for it. Raising kids can be one of the most meaningful and rewarding things to parents, but it ain't no fun.

(08:06)
It's certainly involves effort and pain, and it's often thankless, but it's meaningful. It's got purpose, it's got passion, and you find your peace and it becomes the most joyful thing to do. Differentiate between fun and joy. People don't waste your life. Have fun, but not to escape and discover joy. And here's a secret. When you are in harmony with life, exactly how it is, without judgment, without analysis, just with it, and you go through it, that is harmony and that is pure joy. But you know what we do? We seek a painkiller of fun. Unfortunately, the painkiller doesn't last forever and it doesn't even fix the root of the problem. And next time you're having fun, ask yourself, am I using this moment of fun as an escape? Can I scale this up? And if the answer is no, then stop. I don't know if you can see it, but it takes intelligence to be happy.

(09:06)
It takes wisdom to see life, and it takes awareness to discover the joy within the life. But it only takes a moment of disgruntlement to seek fun. And in that moment when we end the experience of reality, it drains every fucking ounce of wisdom that could have guided you to discovering passion, have your fun, but not at the experience of discovering the joy. Call life to all your young people and to the old folks like me. It's never too late and it's never too early. Find your passion. Make your progress. Discover your peace, passion, progress, peace. That's happiness. Next time you're having fun, ask yourself, am I escaping something or am I moving towards something? Am I just chasing the next distraction? Or am I going to now build a life of passion, progress, and joy? Thank you for joining me on this episode of Being Brilliant. Remember, go There's words. Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Take the spark of inspiration and turn it into action. If this episode moved, you share it with someone who needs that spark. And don't forget to subscribe for more energy, insights, and strategies. Let's keep the momentum alive to together. Until next time, dream big, act boldly and keep being brilliant.