On Happiness
I was a person who rolled my eyes when someone would say that they just wanted to be happy. I wanted passion, intensity, or to change the world not merely to be happy. Happiness seemed like a cop out -the easy path for those people who lack character.
I stand corrected.
As life pushed me, pulled me, and demanded I put down my pretense, I came to see happiness as perhaps the most important element of life. Not only is it foundational. It is essential. Not only is it transformational. It is rigorous.
I am not talking about the kind of happiness that ignores the more challenging parts of life. I am talking about the kind of happiness that can embrace the difficulty and choose what is positive and joyous consciously and deliberately.
In the course of a day, there are many things vying for our attention. There are the stresses of life, the pains of our loved ones, and the discord of the world. Each of these challenges our ability to hold onto what feels good and right to us. Each of these imposes itself on our pleasure and our peace.
Learning to hold my center, honor my own wellbeing, and take care of the precious sanctuary of my soul has been a central focus of the last few years of my life. It has demanded that I let go of things that do not serve me, that I have courage to step into even more of what I want, and that I learn the structures and flow that build happiness into each moment of my life.
I have come to believe that happiness is an art form of the highest caliber. And like every art form, it requires our attention, dedication, and sacrifice.
We must learn to take care of our selves. We must learn, as strange as it may sound, to be comfortable with higher levels of happiness. We must learn how to facilitate and welcome it into our life.
We also must be willing to throw out what we most cherish in our creation if it does not fit with the composition of our happiness.
We must lean into what we cannot see and trust the universe to bring us the insight necessary. This requires maturity and trust and perhaps most importantly lack of attachment.
Dedication to our joy is the first step in creating healing.
It is only through giving to our selves in this way that we can begin to shift the painful dynamics that are in ourselves and in the world. It is our joy combined with our love that can provide us with the insight necessary to create a world or even a moment that is truly inhabitable, that facilitates the wellbeing of all.
I ask you to have the courage to choose your happiness, to be ruthless in looking at your life and removing what does not serve you as well as finding the strength and openness to embrace all that is in service of your bliss.