Some people say that the pursuit of happiness is trivial, self indulgent and self-serving. I don’t know what experiences those people have had, but in my experience I see that when people are happy, they are much more loving, supportive, and available to themselves and to those around them, however most reasonable people might say that, dealing with poverty, sickness, war, global warming and the woes of the world, should all take priority over a personal concern for individual happiness.

The implication is that happiness, as some people claim, is not only self serving but limited and therefore not worthy of consideration. How sad that schools do not offer classes on “how to be happy” instead we’re taught to think that we are responsible for all of the problems brought about in our own life and the lives of others.

Is it any wonder that we get stressed with all the pressures real and imagined starting to take medications to calm us down, cheer us up, give us energy, help us to sleep…… sometimes abusing those very things that we wanted to help us. Well why not ……..we feel that we have the weight of the world on our shoulders………. or so it seems.!!

So often we strive to change the world around us by changing others. We focus on external solutions to problems which can appear so overwhelming and complex that any reasonable hope of success seems remote. “What can I do?” we ask ourselves in despair. “I’m just one person.” The simple answer is that we can only change ourselves.

The irony is that for us individually and for the planet collectively there perhaps is no issue more pressing than personal happiness. To be happy – and all that happy implies- comfortable, loving, accepting, nonjudgmental, joyful, at peace with oneself, might in fact be the most pertinent prescription for dealing with what most of us are concerned with on a global, communal and personal level.

If just one person changes, becomes happier, touches another with a more loving, peaceful and generous hand, then the world has indeed, become a more loving and peaceful place. This has an effect on the world like a stone being thrown into the middle of a pond, its ripples spread throughout the water. Our capacity to change enables us to make a truly profound difference in the world.

Try it next time your angry, with your child, lover or spouse. Put your pride to one side and say a loving or empathetic word instead of an angry one, you’ll be amazed at the difference!

Acceptance is the pathway to happiness. We can’t change what isn’t ours to change.
We Are the Difference.

Shortcuts to Happiness: Part viii

When we inspire others to be happy, we inspire ourselves. Every situation becomes an opportunity. Children allow us to see the happiness option and the unhappiness option in action. They demonstrate an amazing power to turn switches on and off at will. As adults, we are no less powerful.

How often have we seen children in the supermarket crying and screaming for something on the shelf or in the cart and mums trying to appease the kid under the watchful, glaring eyes of other customers as if the child were being beaten to death, with embarrassment we give into to the glares and give in to the demands of the child. Immediately the child will stop screaming and will smile happily through the tears as she gobbles the goody and the customers stand looking approvingly. I’ve even heard some people applaud at such a scene………the child soon learns that to be unhappy pays off. If you scream and cry you get candy. I wonder if that little girl did the same in the next store!

Illusion #1: Unhappiness now gets us happiness later. Not so.! Using misery to fight misery just adds to more misery…..pure and simple.
Illusion #2: Unhappiness is a natural, unavoidable characteristic of the human condition. Not so again! Unhappiness follows from certain beliefs and judgments, which we choose and which we can change.

So often we hear ourselves and others make statements like the following: “She made me angry!” “He got me upset!” “If my parents would have been more supportive, I would have been happier.” ‘Balancing my check book makes me crazy.” “Your questions about our relationship make me feel insecure.” “Their proposition got me excited.” We talk as if our (emotions, anger, upset, happiness, craziness, insecurity or excitement) are caused by people, places or things.

Events are events and each of us chooses our response by how we decide to view them and by what beliefs and judgments we engage during the process. No one can be inside of our heads pulling our strings. We do that for ourselves.
Maybe someone might make a derogatory remark about us, so we can choose to take it as the insult that it was meant to be or we can choose to say that perhaps the person making the remark is prejudice or well……that’s just his own opinion and we can dismiss the remark and not give it any power.

We could take such self-empowerment and see it as depressing and feel unhappy and miserable over situations or we can be more liberating by choosing to make ourselves feel happy. If we have the power to make ourselves feel uncomfortable, miserable and angry, then we must also have the power to give ourselves the experience of comfort and peace of mind. Rather than be emotional victims to circumstances or blame other people for what we do and feel, we can take charge! We choose our state of mind. We are the belief makers. In this universe, happiness is a choice and misery is optional (Not inevitable.)

Shortcuts to Happiness: Part vii

Due to my own lack of clarity, my egotistical attitude and my dependence on self-reliance, for many years I missed the sign posts to happiness. I know now that I didn’t have to walk that road but for many years I wallowed in the denial of my addictions not knowing that I needed help.

For those of us who are just wallowing in egotism, pride, anger and other defective behavior we can make a choice to empower our pursuit of happiness and access shortcuts by making simple decisions and implementing them into our daily lives.

Such decisions empower us with an attitudinal change in every situation…everyday of our lives. It’s not a magical process so we can make happiness an achievable option if we can realize that we all as human beings ‘deserve to be happy.’ Perhaps the missing ingredient for me had been the unwillingness to establish a clear intention to make happiness a priority, the priority. Many of us make the mistake of searching for happiness everywhere except the place where happiness lies, inside of ourselves.

How many times have we heard people say that “we are going to India, Australia or Timbuktoo in search of ourselves,” well why go to such faraway places? Sometimes to experience new places or be placed in different situations, we can learn much about ourselves, but this is only knowledge. Unless we know how to implement our knowledge what’s the use of more knowledge.

We can begin by recognizing that we already had practice in creating personal happiness. We do it all the time, in small, yet meaningful ways. How many times have we raided the freezer for ice cream? Or come home after a grueling day and put on a favorite piece of music, kicked off our shoes, sank into our favorite chair and listened. Almost immediately there is a transformation by creating a personal happiness and used the vehicle of music to do it. For many people to start their day without their, hairdo and makeup would be a disaster.

Unfortunately many of us turn to, drugs or alcohol and we experience the illusion of happiness for a while until the effects wear off and for many, just one or two drinks is not enough, tolerance builds up and trouble starts. (In the near future there will be articles exclusive to addiction)

The myth underlying such well intended activities would be that music, ice cream, good hair days and makeup, bring happiness. Not so! We give ourselves that feeling also whilst anticipating, indulging in or recalling the experience. What we generate and feel has nothing directly to do with the stimulus outside and has everything to do with the ‘happiness option’ we trigger inside. What we discovered is that we can access that mechanism within as a choice or completely self generated decision without requiring any outside support. We can be happy without a reason…………because happiness is reason enough in itself.

Shortcuts to Happiness: Part vi

Is happiness a reality or an impossible dream? What does it mean to be happy? Some call happiness a feeling of satisfaction, comfort, fulfillment, and inner peace. Others refer to joy, excitement or sexual pleasures. The sensation of happiness might be unique to each of us; however we do know when we’re there.

We can note certain common characteristics. When we are happy we are accepting of ourselves (not judging ourselves) When we are happy with others, we are accepting of them (not judging others) Happiness brings us closer together rather than pushing us apart. But above all, happiness makes love possible. To love someone fully and completely is to be happy with that person, to accept him without judgments and be happy for his existence. To love ourselves fully and completely is to be happy and completely accepting of whom we are.

How many times have we said as children, to our parents or as adults to our spouses and friends say to close companions “can’t you just love and accept me as I am?” What we are really saying is “please just be happy with me” We might be saying that we are willing to change but “please don’t let your love be conditional on the changing”

Most of us hide away from the criticisms of others, but how much do we criticize ourselves? At home in the mirror or perhaps in a reflection of a shop window we will condemn ourselves for being too fat, or we tell ourselves that we are too slow, too stupid or too ugly. What we may silently or verbally ask from others, we deny ourselves. But we can become the ‘gift givers’ to others and ourselves, and the gift that we can offer is our happiness and the peace, love and acceptance that flow from us.

Without the thunder clouds of dis-ease (discomfort) fear, anger, depression, anxiety, hate, jealousy, sadness we free ourselves to see more clearly, to understand more deeply, and to be more open and energized in all pursuits of our lives. In contrast, unhappiness takes its daily toll on our lives. Unhappiness diverts us, diminishes our stamina, drains our energy and leaves us feeling depleted and performing an endless variety of self defeating acts like drug addiction, alcoholism, child abuse and physical ailments such as stomach ulcers or cancer, that are all testimonials to misery.

There is no single energy that has more impact on the universe than the joy and well being emanating from a truly happy, loving, person. When we are committed to creating a peaceful new world, inside and out, the old beliefs and ideas become irrelevant.

So we have to begin someplace or with someone so why don’t we start with you and me and with whomever else decides to pursue happiness with strength and passion. A very wise person once told me that “I am the only problem that I have therefore I am the only solution that I need!” It’s our choice - as it has always been.

Shortcut to Happiness: Part v

If we change one belief, we can change the feelings and behaviors that come with that belief. If we can change our vision, which consists of a whole set of beliefs, we can alter an amazing conglomerate of feelings and behaviors at once. People can change at any age. Where there is life, there is possibility. Even ancient beliefs can be overturned or replaced in a matter of moments.
We are the river.

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be
Abraham Lincoln.

If we’re so smart, why are many of us not happy?
Maybe it’s because we have not yet created a vision to support our reality. But we can if we choose to! Because we are the belief makers!

Each vision brings its own life experience and technology. Sometimes the impact defies our imagination. The search takes us and inspires us to take many adventures. In the light of modern living we can find comforts and luxuries to tickle our appetites for more and more. We can fly to foreign countries, we can make movies, fly men to the moon, we can have delicate laser surgery and build skyscrapers like never before and our technological inventiveness knows no bounds.

Yet the internal vision that drives us seems to be abnormally antiquated. We express anger, we’re judgmental and just as we did hundreds of years ago when we belittle, imprison and kill others whose lives and beliefs differ from our own.
We live with daily discomfort as we play out our fears with disease, drugs, alcohol, suicide, rape and murder. Everything has changed; but nothing is different. We have only become better at making war and more sophisticated at dulling our senses at what we don’t want to see.

In the face of such immense data and intelligence, what could we create in our lives by changing our internal vision and the attitude with which we can embrace ourselves and those around us? Desire, passion and the ingenuity of the mind has given birth to space shuttles, heart transplants, religious freedom and the like.

Could we take some familiar words, like happiness, love, peace, humility and tolerance and use our ingenuity to make them graspable and tangible now? If we did, would we be entering an age of transformation more profound than any other witnessed on the planet? If we take a little of that desire and willingness combined with passion the ingenuity and transfer it to our heart, can we now attain happiness as a sustained and transforming human experience? My own experience tells me so!
We are the river!