 What makes someone truly happy? I've been wondering this for a long time and several years ago I was staying in a monastery in southwestern China with some colleagues and I had a conversation with the abbess, one of the head monks there and it really made me think about what makes people happy and I thought I'd share it here today. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hine, doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine and author of the health book Master of the Day. So before we jump in there are two very important links right below the video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you can reach out to my private practice and clinic right below this video and the second is for a free guide which is 4D the rituals that can potentially help you ideas to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So as I was passing the abbess one day I asked her in Chinese I said why is it that every time I see you you always seem so happy you know day-to-day life here seems kind of boring to be honest and she said looking around she thought she gave me a good answer and then she said because life is happiness and later that day she was describing to our group how she was traveling all over the world purely because she wanted to see the effect that meditation in those areas had on her body so she wanted to see the effect that the environment caused internally in her body but you thought was a very interesting very inwardly directed perspective when it comes to how we feel and what makes us happy and it got me thinking about a few things first and foremost because her life was so inner-oriented right she lives in a cloistered monastery it's not a whole lot to do she's an abbess she had a shaved head she was very fortunate to travel which is rare for a monk but even then her primary focus was not necessarily sightseeing it was how does meditating and Antarctica feel inside my body how does meditating in the woods near New York feel inside my body and it's very different from how most of us live but one particular lesson came to me was that for many of us we're expecting a kind of state or an endpoint where we'll be happy it's almost like the flawed logic that people have when it comes to money that once I make six figures once I make two hundred thousand dollars a year once I make five thousand dollars extra per month over my living expenses then I'm gonna be good right that internally I will feel settled or at peace or not stressed but in reality everything is in flux all the time and one of the things that she made me realize was that your finances are in flux all the time your health is in flux all the time right your mood is in flux all the time your relationships in flux you may have had a great year for your health and a horrible year for your finances we are stressed about that all the time or you may have had a great year for your relationship and a terrible year for your health or health is good finances are good and your relationship ended and now you're extremely depressed for the last year because you miss this core pillar of your life so I think thinking that everything will reach a fixed point where it's all stable and it's all good is just not true and understanding that things are always in flux and most importantly being at peace with things in flux I think is a more pure path to happiness so I think a little baby habit right a little master-of-the-day daily habit that has been helpful for me is just saying out loud I am okay that things are in flux I'm okay that in the last year my health was good and for the last month I haven't slept well I'm tired all the time I lost my close friends some have moved some have gotten married some have had kids that relationships good then you may have a fight with your spouse or finances are great and then suddenly you get a home and now you're stressed for the next 10 years but just being at peace with flux right being at peace with change acknowledging that I have a little bit of acid reflux today it's not a big deal I have a little bit of debt that I've accumulated in the last two weeks not a big deal one of my close friends is leaving the city that I live in that's terrible but ultimately it's just the nature of life to change and I think understanding that for many of us being at peace with things always changing is a less neurotic approach to life as opposed to every little health symptom that comes up oh my god what is that I haven't had acid reflux like that in a long time why am I not sleeping well my friends everyone's leaving me this kind of neurotic grasping that tends to happen when we're afraid will make you sick on its own so for me my lesson from that monk was that things are always changing and internally if you can view things as it's okay that they're changing it's okay that they're in flux it's okay that I don't feel well at the moment nothing is wrong it's just the nature of things to change then you'll be a lot less stressed as you go throughout your daily life so those are my two cents from this monk in Sichuan province and I hope they give you some insights or something to think about today but besides that don't forget to check out that free download but follow the video and if you're interested in becoming a patient locally or virtually you can reach out to my practice right below this video