Changing Happiness

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a
particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change
its form. . . happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.

Charles L. Morgan


It seems to be a common mistake that we make, thinking that happiness is always going to be the same thing for us.  It changes not just as we grow up and learn about different possibilities in life, but it also changes day by day, hour by hour.  While I may find happiness in the morning by going for a long, easy run, my happiness in the afternoon will consist of curling up on the couch next to a lamp with a book in my hands and a glass of wine on the table next to me.  Neither of those things would have made me even the slightest bit happy when I was ten or twelve years old.  Happiness isn't a question of specific things that have to happen or we're unhappy--happiness is recognizing where we are and when it is and finding what's best for us at that moment.
Is that new job going to bring you lasting happiness?  Nope.  It may provide conditions that can contribute to your happiness, but the job itself won't make you happy.  You must look for what makes you happy and allow that to change and grow as you move on in your life.  Something that made you happy one or five or fifteen years ago can't be expected to still bring you happiness--you're a different person now, and your needs and desires have changed significantly, so you need to find the new forms of happiness that are much more fitting for you now.
It's very common to see people feel confused when they realize that the things that used to make the happy no longer do so.  You may grow perplexed from time to time, also.  But when you open yourself up to the possibility that change has happened and you follow your heart to find out what makes you happy now, you can find a whole new world of happiness--and it already surrounds you.  It's just waiting for you to recognize it.

Cooperation

What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean
that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every
component is there not for competitive profit or recognition, but for
contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.

W. Edwards Deming


We've got it wrong in our country--dreadfully wrong.  We've devolved into a society that focuses on separation and competition rather than cooperation, and we're paying a very heavy price for that.  We've lost the respect for other people's positions and opinions, and we no longer ask someone who disagrees with us for their opinions of advice, and we suffer because of it.  Sometimes, the very thing we need to improve dramatically is input from someone who doesn't agree with us, for their perspective is very different from ours--and there's a very good chance that they see something that we don't.  All of us have a limited perspective, and if we choose to respect input from only those people who agree with us, we're keeping ourselves down for good.  If we can't see the bigger pictures in life, we function in very limited ways.

We're not here to compete with each other--we're here to cooperate with each other.  We're not here to judge and insult people who disagree with us--we're here to learn from them.  Until we learn how to cooperate, especially with those whose positions are different from ours, we're merely limited little creatures who are trying so hard to maintain and defend our version of reality that we lose sight of the fact that the world is much bigger than we are, that there are different perspectives everywhere we look--and they could be very valuable to us as we try to improve our lives and the lives of those we love.  Because we ignore them, though, they're like picnic baskets that are full of wonderful food--but that we never open because we don't like its color or its shape.

Finding Fault

My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end.
Nothing is easier than fault-finding.  All it will do is discolor my personality
so that none will want to associate with me.  That was my old life.  No more.

Og Mandino


It's so incredibly easy to find fault with others, especially since our society has developed into one in which we value criticism more than we value praise or encouragement.  But fault-finding helps almost no one at all--and in fact hurts more people than we can really imagine, including ourselves.  We were not placed on this planet in order to find problems with other people--we were put here to have the chance to become the best people we possibly can be, and that means making sure that we're improving ourselves, not trying to make others conform to our ideas of what should be.

Some of us have jobs that require us to find faults.  I taught writing for many years, and it was very important that I point out what kinds of mistakes students were making.  But it was also very important for me to model the more effective ways of doing things, and to give them feedback that told them when they were improving.  But for the most part, we're not here to point out other people's faults just to make ourselves feel a tiny bit better for a very short time.  We'll be much more effective in making this world a better place and ourselves better people if we stick to encouragement and praise of others.  There already are plenty of people who find fault all the time.  We don't need to be a part of that group--it doesn't help us to make our lives better even in the slightest.

Which do you choose?

When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present--love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure--the wasteland of illusion falls away
and we experience heaven on earth.   -Sarah Ban Breathnach


This is one of those "that's easy to say" concepts.  In my life, I definitely have spent much more time focusing on what I didn't have than on what I had.  Over the last two decades, though, I've been able to shift my thinking so that I'm more focused on what I do have--all of the great things that are all around me--and my life is much richer and full as a result.  It wasn't an easy shift to make, though.  It took a lot of effort to constantly remind myself of the importance of being aware of what I was focusing on, and especially to catch myself when I was being negative, when I was focusing on the lack.

So now my main effort is to maintain my focus on what I do have and what is there in life for me to experience and enjoy.  I can go for a walk in the woods whenever I want, and I can see flowers or listen to very good music at any time.  Seemingly negative things still happen fairly regularly--life is like that.  But I try to deal with them as soon as I can and then move on.  If someone says something awful to me, I move my thoughts to people who are kind to me.  If I have to spend a lot of money to fix something, I focus on the money I do have and the things it allows me to do.

The most important word in the passage from Sarah, of course, is "choose."


http://livinglifefully.com/abundance.htm

Something to Admire in Everyone

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed
emotions.  There is always something in our enemy that we like,
and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.   -William Butler Yeats

It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that everything about someone we dislike is awful.  It's also very easy to think that everything about someone we like is positive and wonderful.  But life isn't like that, and if we ignore the good in our enemies and the not-so-pleasant (or even downright bad!) in the people we care for, we're doing a great disservice to ourselves.

I've known many people who have seemed to be extremely positive persons, whom I've liked very much, who after a while have turned out to be extremely manipulative and deceitful people.  The things that I liked about them were simply manipulative techniques to them--they acted nice to others so that others would do what they wanted them to do.  If I hadn't been aware that there's much more to people than what we see on the surface, I might have been simply another "victim" to them, another person being used, but not appreciated.

That doesn't mean, though, that we simply reject all such people.  There was still something about those people that was likable, and it was in my best interest to learn what that was.  Likewise, I've seen people who seem to be all negative with traits that would be good for any of us to emulate.  I've met rude and obnoxious people who are wonderful with their children; mean people who donate time and money to worthy causes; people who insult and belittle others who are extremely good at their trade or profession.  These people, too, seemed to be ones that I should reject immediately, yet if I were to do so I would not learn the important lessons that they have to teach me.

Sometimes the most important lessons we can learn is how to minimize the bad traits we see in ourselves and others while maximizing the good traits that we see in ourselves and others.

Life is always a mixture--almost nothing is one way all the time.  Unfortunately, we often seem to set ourselves up for disappointment, frustration, and worse when we choose to believe that a certain person is all one way.  We must accept that there will be the negative traits in the people we like, and that our enemies have traits that we can admire and learn from.

A Place in Nature

What riches are ours in the world of nature, from the majesty of the distant peak to the fragile beauty of a tiny flower, and all without cost to us, the beholders!  No person is poor who has watched a sunrise or who keeps a mountain in his or her heart.   -Esther Baldwin York

It's amazing just how much we value things like money and material possessions when we're surrounded by amazing beauty and miracles all the time.  The natural world is one of the most important parts of our lives, yet most of us either take it for granted or ignore it completely as we go along in our daily lives.  It's easy to do when we live in cities, of course, and we see very little of nature from day to day, but if we really want to benefit from our experiences on this planet, it's important that we make an effort to make nature a real part of our daily lives.

It's not always easy to do this, of course.  And for some people, it's much more work than it is for others.  But even when I've lived in cities, I've always been able to find and appreciate little pockets of nature wherever they turn up.  The hardest city I ever lived in was Salamanca, for there's very little nature to be seen there.  But there are plenty of tiny parks all over the place, and I found several "favorite spots" where I could go just to be near trees and flowers and plants.  I easily could have gone weeks on end without enjoying their company had I not searched them out, but it's always been important to me on an instinctive level to maintain contact with nature in my life, so I did so.

The benefits to me have always been a sense of peace and relaxation in the midst of a hectic and somewhat unfriendly environment, where I've been surrounded by cement, for the most part.  Finding a tree to sit under always reminds me that life goes on, no matter what else happens--the stress of my day means less when I'm sitting in the shade of a tree that doesn't care one way or another about all those little stress-causers in our lives.  The trees and flowers remind me that in the bigger picture, all is well, and that the world is filled with resilience and beauty.

I do see many people who live in small towns, completely surrounded by nature, who also take it for granted or ignore it.  What a tragic mistake they're making, to ignore what could be the source of many, many pleasant moments that will help them to achieve a sense of peace and balance!  I would love to take them by the hand and lead them to a beautiful place where they could experience the feeling of being in the presence of eternity, but my guess is that many of them would simply shrug their shoulders, say "thanks," and turn and go home to resume their busy, crowded lives.

Where is nature around you?  How do you take advantage of all that it offers you?  Please remember that it's there and that it's waiting for you, and it will welcome you just as it welcomes everyone else--without judgment and without condition; and as long as you treat it well, it will treat you very well indeed.  Find that park bench or that trail in the woods that you can call your own, and enjoy it immensely and regularly!

Why Let Go?

There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind.  But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world; it’s the beginning of a new life.  -unattributed

Thich Nhat Hanh says that we don't let go of things like suffering because we fear the unknown more than we dislike the suffering--we don't let go because what's known, even if it's pain, is less scary to us.  And that's a shame because by holding on to the pain and the suffering, we're definitely keeping ourselves from being happy, from reaching our potential, from helping other people to deal with their pain and suffering.

When we start to let go of things, we start to live our lives fully and completely.  We start to create space in our lives for other things that may be more helpful to us, more positive for us, more useful to us in our struggle to become the people we're meant to be.  When we hold on, we're telling life that we don't trust it--that we fear losing everything if we let go of this one thing.  We fear being alone if we let go of a destructive relationship; we fear having nothing positive to do if we let go of an addictive behavior; we fear not having anything at all if we let go of some of our material possessions.

When we let go of many things, though, we open ourselves up to new things, new people, new experiences.  We give ourselves the opportunity to see and feel and do new things, and we help ourselves to move on from the status quo into something new and possibly exciting.

I like to collect things.  Because of my upbringing, much of that trait is due to the lack of security that I felt growing up, and it's not the most positive of ways to approach life and living.  Now that I'm older, though, and I've learned that I can trust life and living, and that I'm not going to find myself with nothing at all just because I give certain things up, I can and I do let go of things.  Sometimes I let go of people who have turned out to be destructive to me.  Sometimes I let go of possessions--books that I fear I'll want to read again and cd's that I fear I may need to listen to again, but that in reality are going to end up sitting on a shelf for the next five years, never used, if I don't give them up.  Sometimes I give up behaviors that have become "safe" for me, but that are really keeping me from taking risks and trying new and different things.

Sometimes I ask myself, "Can I let go of this without causing a major disruption in my life?"

And then I say to myself, "Perhaps a major disruption is just what I need."