Thoughts on Happiness

Happiness does not come from external situations, conditions, or people. You choose whether you are happy.  Either you are happy Being or you are not.

Happiness

is wherever you are

doing what ever you are doing

at any given moment.

Sooooo, who decides if you should be happy, and what’s best for you?

On one side are folks who answer quickly: “I decide if I am happy.” On the other side are folks who answer quickly “I decide if you should be happy.” It’s easy to see why there appears to be so much struggle and angst – those two positions are polarity – opposite ends, and as such, repel each other. Which are you?

Are you choosing to be happy? Or, are you waiting for someone or something else's approval or permission in order to feel happy?

What we call happiness is another way of describing a dominant feeling or emotional state. It’s on the high end towards JOY, which appears to be as delightful a state of being as we can manage at the moment in our spiritual evolution. We equate JOY with LOVE.

People often describe their happiness in terms of loving and being loved. Indeed, we do feel happy when we are loved and we feel happy when we love. This is unconditional love, no strings attached. That which we call Love cannot have conditions or strings for if they are present, it is not love, but something else.

I like to substitute the word APPRECIATION for Love. They are virtually synonymous. Yet when we appreciate someone or something there's no "exchange" necessary - what are you going to do for me? Appreciation is just that - a positive, uplifting, joyful feeling of enjoying the focus of your appreciation. Simple.

Sometimes folks fuss about how silly this concept is - Choose happiness or choose whatever and it'll happen. They don't believe in magic. Me neither. It's not magic. It's physics. You KNOW how it WORKS because you choose and create your experience every moment.

An example: You decide you would enjoy dining out. You make a decision that you will go out to eat and at once you begin drawing to you all the resources necessary to create that desire. You select a time, you choose what restaurant, you may invite a friend or someone who you believe would enjoy dining out as much as you. You determine the means of exchange for the meal (a.k.a cash, credit, debit card), and time passes, moving you closer to the event. And then you go out to eat - having determined how you would get there physically - you drove your car this time.

This IS creation, this IS how it works. You DO it constantly, you are good at it. What we often miss, is that we CAN create our level of joy, our experience, just as easily as we can create a dining experience, or shopping experience, or going to work experience, or, well, anything.

DON’T WORRY! BE HAPPY!

“Yeah, riiiight…” “If you’re not worrying, you don’t understand the situation…”

Okay, we’ve all been there – had some irritatingly cheerful soul spout some nonsense about “don’t worry…think positive” or some such grating platitude, when we’re tangled with a situation that scares us. What’s wrong with the goody-goody unicorn rainbow person that he/she doesn’t get it! I’ve got to worry about it, because if I don’t…”

Stop it right there. “I’ve GOT to worry about it, because if I don’t…” Then what? What WILL happen should you STOP worrying about something?

• Is a loved one suddenly going to wreck their life because you stopped worrying?
• Is some situation going to crater or explode because you stopped worrying?
• Is someone going to think less of you if you stop your suffering on account of someone else?

Well, maybe the last one.  But then, maybe that's a relationship to re-consider...

What IS worry, anyway? Worry is creating something you do not want. It’s that simple. Worry is the desperate action of focusing your thinking on something that you fear and do not want. Now, how on earth does that thinking improve anything? It doesn’t. It only increases your awareness of what else is “wrong” or “un-desired.” It’s very easy to worry about a mole hill - then find yourself under a mountain avalanche of grief.

The mental action we call “worry” is an energy launched at something that scares us. “Oh, gosh, I sure hope Fred doesn’t eat too many sweets over the Holidays, it’s bad for his health.” “The weather is terrible, I’m afraid Jane will have a wreck!” Of course the mental activity can be more nebulous and manifest as a chronic dis-ease regarding certain people or situations. I’ve even heard of physical manifestations – warts – in particular.

Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something!

Calvin Coolidge got it right. “If you see ten troubles coming down the road,” he said, “you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you and you have to battle with only one of them.” With an outlook like that, it’s easy to understand why Silent Cal was seldom anxious. Unfortunately, many people see the ten troubles and leap into action ten different ways. Some, fifteen or twenty – a typhoon of diffused activity.

Some Thoughts on Worry:

Worry has been described as the interest paid on trouble before it falls due or actually arrives. Many people go through the day paying a very high interest rate on their perceived troubles.

Worry is a part of the natural response to fear. Worry is a mental activity that attempts to satisfy an instinct to do something.

Worry feeds on indecision. Worry flourishes when someone perceives that he/she has no defense against the threat. Perceives sounds a lot like believes. The greater the worry, the more fearful a person feels about the situation. Worry in itself accomplishes nothing. But it sure burns up a lot of mental and emotional energy.

The above are notes in progress for a talk on Worry next week.  All in all, it boils down to deliberately choosing where you focus your immediate mental attention.  It's amazing how concerned many folk are regarding what they eat, or drink, or wear, or drive...but remain so casual about what and how they think!

A Good Morning "DUH!"

Just in time for Christmas!  John Stossel pegs a "root cause" of  poverty world-wide.   It is a thought, once fully understood, banging around and disturbing the night for many.  Catch it in his JWR column.

Well, why not?

I made it a point
to smile one day
in spite of all around.
Grousing vanished,
moaning faded,
and complaining walked away.

No matter what,
I could see beyond
and glimpse the inner core,
and that was a smile indeed.

After a while
those happy in their grief
stood further away,
and I had a marvelous day.

Guess who was grinning?