I am so often amazed about books that promise us happiness, clergy who promise us happiness if we do as they say, or roller coaster visits, holidays and so many other things which frankly seem to confuse excitement with happiness.
A wise counselor once taught me the difference between being “in love” and “true love”. He said that “in love’s” vision stopped at the other set of eyes and so was lost when those other eyes were not present, while “true love’s” vision is infinite and always a unified direction, no matter where our partner’s eyes are situated. He said that happiness in a partnership came from a shared vision, and that actually is true for both personal or corporate partnerships, where the partners will state they are “happy”.
Then there are those that feel you must travel the world to “find yourself”, as in the book “Eat Love Pray”. Others who, like this person, found out that happiness is where you are when you are in it. She went to Bhutan to find a “happy room” (as my cousin Sol calls it), yet realized that it can in fact be anywhere.
It seems to me that its far more a journey than a destination. Yet in pop western culture, we are taught to be malcontents, that we must seek greater fortune, fame or otherwise to be truly “following the calling of a higher being”. Some profess that we have a “divine right to more”…just before they ask you for your VISA or Mastercard :). It just doesn’t ring for me, I guess.
Be happy. Create yourself. When Jesus implored us to treat others as we wish to be treated, it was frankly the cornerstone of what he had learned, what elders before him had passed on, in different words, and what others after him have found truth in. Since the only thing that I can control on this journey is my intention, from which my realities will come, I guess the secret is to follow that bit of wisdom, from which happiness surely ensues.
All I know is that I am one very, very lucky man…
S.