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We live in an age in which many people are seeking happiness. It’s also an age in which many people want big things for themselves, and devote their lives, at least partially, to trying to get these things.

A common misconception is that getting what you want leads to your happiness. This isn’t true. Happiness comes from knowing how to live your life in a way that is suitable for your temperament.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to attain or achieve something, your happiness should involve the pursuit of that thing, not the thing itself. Knowing how to enjoy the process is more conducive to happiness than the end goal. When you do reach your end goal, you will feel a bit awkward for a short amount of time, because of the void that used to be filled by a goal, until you find another goal to work towards. Life is all process, only punctuated by reaching goals. Learn to enjoy the process.

This doesn’t mean that getting what you want isn’t good. Hitting goals is an important part of the structure of working towards something.

Anyways, where does learning come into all of this?

Well both happiness and getting what you want have something in common. They both can be achieved in one of two ways. The first way is luck. The second way is knowing how to be happy, or knowing how to get what you want.

Most people don’t, through some stroke of good fortune, attain happiness or get what they want.

That means that for most people the second means, knowledge of how to attain or achieve, is the more reliable course.

The thing about being happy or getting what you want, is that if you don’t already have them, it can feel like there is an insurmountable obstacle in the way. Anything worth having doesn’t come easy, as they say.

This is where learning as a way of life comes into the picture. If you want to learn how to solve the very hard problems of unshakable happiness (not to be dramatic) and success (in your own definition), you need to get very good at learning. You probably need to learn lessons and subjects that are more difficult or profound than what you’ve ever learned before, or else you’d already be there.

The way to get that good at learning, is to approach every moment of life as an opportunity to learn, and to see every moment of learning as a victory. In order to do this you need to embrace unbiased learning. Unbiased learning means being willing to learn about absolutely anything, or more precisely whatever comes your way. For example on a Tuesday night while preparing dinner, perhaps one moment you’re learning about how to cook something new, the next you’re learning about your relationship with your partner, and maybe the next you’re mulling over some topic in your head and noticing a previously unnoticed detail.

Essentially you need to grow your tree(s) of knowledge relentlessly, and if you do it will pay off. If you embrace unbiased learning in every moment, in lucky moments you will learn important things about your own personal happiness and about how to succeed in your chosen way.