The Key To Happiness
The short answer is: there isn’t a recipe that applies to all.
The long answer is that we all must write our own recipe book without knowing what outcome we are working toward. But the joy of writing the book IS happiness!
Hang in there for actual exercises at the end, but let me start by demonstrating what I mean when I say, it really is the journey.
When a desire is born within, it almost always happens because we are looking to feel better. When we wish for a lover, a better-feeling body, a pile of money, more recognition at work, or someplace nice to live, the underlying desire is to feel better. And we always think that the stuff has to happen first, and the emotion will follow. However, this is a very conditional way of living, as well as risky.
Then, happiness is not a university degree. We don’t graduate happy and that is forever ours to keep. Happiness is in the moment. It is a perspective. It is a viewpoint, a choice, a direction, a daydream … And we must attend to it each day because if we don’t use it, we lose it.
A climber does not climb one mountain and retires, does he? No. He is there for the joy of the adventure and the challenge. Once he is up there it will feel incredible for a second, but then a new desire is born within, to climb another one. And another one.
A songwriter doesn’t just write one song. Or a painter one painting. We find happiness in creating, not in the creation. But we have been so focused or conditioned to only hope for the creation, then we forget to enjoy the creating. And there is no happy ending to a miserable journey.
We must find joy regardless of our circumstances, which can seem unreasonable. When we are looking at things that make us feel bad, how could we possibly experience joy? And why would we, when the rest of the world suffers?
Well, if I may ask:
How are you going to be at value if you are suffering as well?
How is that helping anyone?
How is it working out for you?
How are you going to teach others through your example about happiness?
What are you demonstrating to the children of the world?
Are you having a fun ride?
It is okay so feel low at times. It is actually necessary, so you can give birth to new desires and experience your evolution. If you only had tiny hills to climb, you probably would enjoy being a climber. If you only stayed on the peak, it would get boring very quickly. If you never started from the valley, it would not seem like an exciting journey ahead.
Contrast is here to serve us, to teach us, to inspire us. There is no light without darkness, there is no good without bad, and there is no high without the low. Only comparison can show us what happiness feels like and it has to be a choice.
Our emotional guidance can tell us just how far we are from it, and also in which direction we are moving.
Feeling angry? Then don’t try to find appreciation. Too big of a jump. Find frustration instead. Same feeling, with less intensity. So it is moving in the right direction. Feeling angry, then tomorrow feeling despair? Then probably moving away from happy.
Aim for something close enough to be possible, but not far enough to discourage yourself.
If you haven’t worked out in years, there is no point in making a new years resolution to go running every day. The motivation will die after a few weeks. But why not run once a week? Then after a few weeks, run twice. Then keep the frequency but increase the time. Then increase the speed. Then run three times a week. By this time you will be able to tell just how far you are willing to push yourself and instead of killing the well-intended action by reaching too far, you build toward a routine that has time to become natural and joyful.
And that is happiness. To desire, to allow the flow of inspiration, to take inspired action (not desperate), to enjoy the ride, to enjoy the improvement, to enjoy the evolution.
Exercises:
- First always ask yourself: what emotion is inspiring this action? Am I under the influence of a good or a bad feeling thought?
2. Can I reach for a better feeling thought?
3. Why do I desire this thing I want? What is the essence of it? For example, I want money. Why? Because I want to travel places and I have a debt to pay. What do you get from traveling and paying your debt? Easy. Freedom. Adventure. Possibilities. Choices. Calmness. — So it’s not the money that you want then. It is ease, joy, and freedom.
4. How does freedom feel? What does calmness feel like? Start practicing these emotions without connecting them to anything. Why? because it will become your dominant vibration. Through the eyes of freedom, the world will seem very different. You will begin to notice more opportunities, you will start to believe what else is possible. You will feel the change before it comes, so you won’t be wanting the change desperately, which is holding you in the vibration of lack and pain.
5. Make happiness a choice and a daily practice, so you can begin to become the person you wish to be without the conditions around you. But since you won’t vibrate with your circumstances anymore, then something new, something better must come.
Happiness is a choice, a lifestyle, but it is not a place where we arrive once and we stay. Life is precious because it is not forever. Happiness is precious because it is not in every single moment. A vacation is precious because it won’t last. But by consciously deciding to choose better-feeling thoughts, we can always be on the way to happy, which is happiness itself.
Fanni Bartanics