Part 42 of 46 · Chapter 42 · 11 min 06 sec
You’ve read the books on happiness. You’ve highlighted the passages about presence. You know — intellectually — that joy comes from within. You can quote it back to anyone who asks. And still, somewhere in your week, you catch yourself waiting. Waiting for the launch to work. Waiting for the client to say yes. Waiting for the relief that’s supposed to come once the next thing finally lands.
This chapter walks straight into that gap. The gap between knowing about joy and actually living in it. Between understanding presence as a concept and feeling it as a state in your body. If something still isn’t clicking after years of inner work, this chapter might tell you why.
And here’s the part that matters: it’s not you. You’re not slow. You’re not behind. You’ve been taught happiness as an idea — something to think about, journal about, affirm. Nobody handed you the experiential piece. Nobody showed you the difference between joy (which lives in now) and pleasure (which lives in things). Without that distinction, you keep chasing the wrong thing and wondering why the chase never ends.
David reframes it gently in this chapter. Joy is an eternal state of being. Pleasure and pain are external — and they’re the same coin. Whatever gives you pleasure when it’s there gives you pain when it’s gone. That’s why the wins never land the way you hoped. That’s why the next milestone keeps moving. You weren’t doing it wrong. You were aiming at the wrong thing.
What if real joy was already here, and the only thing standing between you and it was the mind escaping into past or future? Press play.
What this chapter unlocks
- The joy vs. pleasure distinction. David draws a clear line: joy is internal, eternal, and lives in the present. Pleasure is external — and whatever gives you pleasure also gives you pain when it’s absent. Most people chase pleasure and call it happiness.
- Why the same thing gives you both pleasure and pain. It’s the mind leaving the present moment — comparing what is to a past memory or future hope. The gap between now and that imagined elsewhere is where suffering lives.
- What David Cameron Gikandi says about wanting. A state of want is a state of never having. It declares the lack. Desire and intend with detachment instead — that’s the posture that actually creates.
- The role of meditation in wealth consciousness. David names vipassana (mindfulness insight meditation) as a recommended practice. Not as theory but to let the teachings move from concept into cellular knowing.
- Why complaining is a structural problem. Complaining — to yourself or others — highlights negativity and creates more of it. The chapter offers a small, almost embarrassingly simple antidote: smile. Try it. Notice what shifts.
The 30-second test
Listen to the first 30 seconds. If the line about giving — not from your possessions, but from yourself — lands somewhere tender, this is your chapter. If you’ve been measuring your generosity by what leaves your bank account instead of what leaves your being, the next eleven minutes will quietly rearrange something.
Why this chapter matters in the series
Chapter 41 opened the conversation on happiness. This second pass goes deeper — separating joy from pleasure, naming the mind’s role in suffering, and pointing at meditation as the bridge from theory to experience. It’s also the pivot point in the arc. From here, the series circles back to money — not as the goal, but as the symbol of everything you’ve been building inside. The inner work was never separate from the outer outcome. This chapter is where that becomes obvious.
Read the full transcript
[Music] A Happy Pocket Full of Money by David Cameron Gakandi. Read by John Wayne Meyers. Disc Six. [Music] It is not how much you do but how much love you put into the doing and sharing with others that is important. Try not o judge people. If you judge others to judge people. If you judge others then you are not giving love. Mother Teresa. Give. Give and give. Giving is another powerful key to happiness. Give unconditionally whatever a person needs in the moment. The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time. Mother Teresa. You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when
you give of yourself that you truly give. Khalo Jabbran. One of the best ways to become wealthy and happy is by practicing meditation every day. Meditation puts you in touch with your higher self and the teachings in this book become you experientially in every cell of your body. They no longer are theoretical constructs for they become you. You no longer have to struggle to practice and remember them for they are you. Start meditating and one day soon you will have this happen to you. The recommended meditation technique here is vipasana mindfulness insight meditation. Spread your joy. Make others happy. It will come back to you sevenfold. Whatever it is that you wish others to recognize
and see in you, recognize and see it in them. Compliment others every day. Find something to compliment. Do it genuinely. Consider this. In ultimate reality, there are no rights or wrongs, no shoulds or should notss. There are no accidents or coincidences or good or bad luck. All events are perfect outcomes of universal law that never fails or urs. It is our choices and goals that make a thing right or wrong, good or bad in the pursuit of that goal or choice. For example, killing is a perfect outcome of universal law and it is not in itself wrong. But if as a society we wish to promote peace, happiness and prosperity, then killing is wrong. Our
choices make a thing right or wrong. But on its own and without our choices, a thing is just a perfect outcome of universal law. Also consider this. Change is all there is. That includes what society considers acceptable or not. Even what looks like an acceptable form of behavior now was at some time in the past unacceptable and will someday become unacceptable and vice versa. Also, what is acceptable here may not be acceptable somewhere lse or at another time or place in the lse or at another time or place in the lse or at another time or place in the day. Think about this on a global, racial, sexual, economic status, and age scale. Then ask
yourself why. Also consider this. To the extent that you make your own choices instead of taking the choices passed on to you by others, you will be happy, growing, and free. What is should? What is can? Why? Who are you? Why? Why? Think about these things. Think about them with detachment. Observe them truly. Within those answers, you will find liberation, power, love, and happiness. The more you choose for yourself and what your life vents are based on your truths and not events are based on your truths and not he truths of others, the happier you the truths of others, the happier you are. You learn to love by loving. You just do it. It is
not complicated unless you complicate it. So, do not complicate it. You need not wait a single moment to start being happy. How fantastic is that? Right now, right here, you can make that choice. You need nothing outside of yourself to be happy and wealthy. It is all inside. The outside simply responds to allow you to experience your internal state physically. The truth is the happy get happier because they know how to be happy and the troubled get more troubled because they pour all their life energy into their troubles. Susan Page. Remember the dangers of wanting. Never want happiness or anything else. A state of want is a perpetual state of never having and a declaration
of not having. Instead of wanting, desire and intend with detachment. The more love you give away, the more of it you get in return. Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find that it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Cleo Jabbran. Do not complain neither to yourself nor to others. What good does it do except highlight negativity and cause it. Smile. Just smile. Try it. It makes you happy. Smile because you know
how life works. Because you know the big secret. Real joy comes from within, from being. Pleasure and pain come from without, from the things outside of you. Joy never stops being joy. It is the nature of spirit of being. It is not affected by external things. Once you are present in now and aware and in touch with yourself, the joy will be everywhere in you and it shall never stop. It never had stopped and never can stop anyway. But you can be blind to it by not being here now, fully present. Joy is an eternal state in now. It is not in the past or future. For those are times that do not exist except
only in the mind. Pleasure and pain on the other hand are xternal. They are also complimentary. external. They are also complimentary. The same thing that gives you pleasure gives you pain. Think about it. Whatever external thing gives you pleasure, when it is not there, you feel pain. You feel the pain of not having it. The same thing gives you pleasure and pain. Or the thing that gives you pain, when it is not there, you feel pleasure. The same thing gives you both. All external things do this and that is why people are often feeling unsatisfied. However, once you touch yourself and live now, real joy comes to the surface and that can never change the
pain. From that point on, everything will become njoyable. Even the most painful things enjoyable. Even the most painful things will cease to bring suffering to you, and you will marvel at all life. Joy is being, and being is is. Now from that point on you shall be happy with all being resisting no present moment but creating your next moments in a powerful way through choice. Resisting isness is feudal. Resisting now is painful. What do you expect to gain out of resisting what is? You cannot undo it. So why bother? Yet when you touch yourself and feel joy, you shall not need any intellectual conviction to stop resisting now. You shall just naturally love all being.
Why does the same thing ive you both pain and pleasure? It is give you both pain and pleasure? It is because of the mind living outside the moment of now. For example, if you like a certain thing that gives you pleasure, when you have that thing, you enjoy it unless you worry about losing it. When you do not have it and you let your mind escape now and go into the past and future thinking, “It was great when I had that thing and I really wish I had it now. I look forward to when I will next have it. I do not like not having it now. You start getting into problems. When you think
like that, you totally miss the joy of now. What is and the gap between now isness and a past and future that only exists in the mind is the cause of pain, anxiety, and issatisfaction. dissatisfaction. Joy is always in the moment of now. It is everpresent, but you can choose not o see it. to see it. When you are out of mind, of no mind, you are being now in harmony with all else that is now. In that state, you are in the best position to enjoy now and also create the next now in the most powerful way, free of worry, anxiety, and negativity. The mind is a tool and you should activate it to
create an intention of the next now. This very quick and detached thinking should not ake any more than a few seconds every take any more than a few seconds every now and then. If you use your mind to constantly ramble on inside your head, thinking about the past and future, all you do is live in the past, worry about he future, and lose now and joy. And the future, and lose now and joy. And anyway, that is no good formula for creating a future. All problems exist only in the mind. They cannot exist in ow. In now, you always pass. You cannot now. In now, you always pass. You cannot fail now. Not 2 seconds
from now or 5 hours from now but right now. All problems exist outside of now in the mind when you use the mind incorrectly. All of the things held constant. To the xtent that an individual or society extent that an individual or society loves unconditionally causes each other happiness and lives now so will they have wealth and happiness. Remember life is a celebration and joy makes for celebration. Joy is spirit being expressed in the ways it likes to and esires to. Express your spirit and let desires to. Express your spirit and let others express theirs. Well, we started with money, went on to larger things, and now we shall go back to money. Money is
not the real thing. It is only a symbol of the real wealth inside us. We have so far been looking at what makes up the real thing. Even though money is not the real thing, we still need to know how to use this money. It is a full circle, a full cycle. For money is the nd of many other things that make up end of many other things that make up wealth consciousness. But it is the beginning of the experiencing of wealth consciousness as material wealth. Money is a symbol of wealth and the beginning of the experiencing of wealth so that we may know how wealth tastes like experientially. Money has two uses. One is
to allow us to exchange our gifts. The other is to allow us to experience wealth. Through this experience, we are able to increase our wealth consciousness and love it even more. Wealth consciousness begets wealth and money which begets wealth consciousness and the cycle goes on. It is a full circle, a full cycle. So we go back to money.
This series is a free taste of the deeper work we do inside the Abundance GPS Skool community — where we help conscious entrepreneurs with adverse childhood experiences get out of their own way and release their brakes, so they can multiply their income and magnify their impact. Join us inside when you’re ready.
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