Make the Radical Choice to Be Happy No Matter What
Make the radical choice to be happy no matter what.
Happiness is right here right now always, if we choose it. I promise! You can overcome your situational happiness and trade it for persistent happiness.You and I place too many terms and conditions on our happiness. We say:
- I'll be happy if...
- I'll be happy when...
Yet we achieve those conditions and they may bring momentary happiness. Then we're right back into dissatisfaction.It's not surprising. Our mainstream culture is a skilled merchant in unhappiness, fear, and dystopia. They sell it in bulk on the regular. We are easily swept into these eddies of dissatisfaction. If we're not careful, they become our home.I'm preaching at me as much as you this morning. I do it too. I place small print terms and conditions on my happiness. I waste days waiting and working for my conditions to materialize.Buddha said, "The worst things in the world are desiring something and getting it." I believe he was talking about this very cycle. We're stuck in desiring rather than enjoying life. Then we get what we want and it loses its charms and appeal.It IS a radical choice to be happy no matter what in such an environment. So, how do we achieve it?Powerhack:
- Choose happiness over and over moment after moment. There's no shortcut. Every moment presents us with a choice to be happy or be stuck in wanting and waiting.
- Be here now. This was the famous advice of Ram Dass. Most of our unhappiness, if you pay attention, exists in the past and the projected future. This moment is wonderful, if you choose to see it.
- Spend more time with roses and jasmine. This was the solution proposed by Rumi to his poetic question, "When you go to a garden do you look at thorns or flowers?" See the positive around you now.
- Be still and know. God or the universe, however you term it, has your back. Good things are coming. Be happy about them before they even arrive.
- Drop your terms and conditions and just be happy.
You are all awesome! Thanks for reading today's post.Ray