Summer Reruns: Happiness 101

¡Hola! Everybody…
Well, it’s the start of the work week and all that blah blah blah. When’s the next holiday?!!

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-=[ Happiness 101 ]=-

“Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.”
-- Greg Anderson (1964– ) NBA basketball player

For many of us, being happy is a state of mind just around the corner. It will come, but only when we get that job, education, lover, shoes, or bag. We will be happy, we seem to be saying, only when we get our act together somehow. In essence, what we’re saying is that we don’t deserve, or cannot attain, that elusive feeling of happiness right at this moment.

I’m here to tell you today that’s all a bunch of crock. We can only be happy right now, this very moment, even in the midst of pain and loss.

If not you, whom?

If not now, when?

Yesterday?

Keep digging up those bodies of yesterday – the trauma and the hurt of your past -- and all you will get are memories. What about tomorrow, you ask? Won’t happiness come tomorrow when we get it together, meet the perfect lover, get the perfect job, find the perfect Coach bag? Find God?

What about tomorrow? Maybe we can be happy tomorrow! Dearest, tomorrow is but a fantasy, a figment of your imagination, and get this bit of news: it’s not even guaranteed. You could drop dead today, right in the middle of reading this, say, or crossing the street, or while taking a particularly challenging dump.

All you have, dear reader, is this moment – right here right now.

Here’s a revolutionary notion: Why not be happy now?!! What’s that you say? You have problems and I don’t understand? You have no food and are hungry. You have no home and are a broke, wretched soul? Welcome to the world. You’re not as unique as you would like to think. If you’re not happy this very moment it’s simply because you have chosen to be wretched. Face it: most of us are addicted to our sadness and our wounds, it’s what we know and leaving sadness and pain can be very traumatizing because then we come to the realization that our happiness must radiate from within. In leaving your default attitude of cynicism and sadness, you come face-to-face with your own accountability.

Go ahead, leave, but before you close my door, please know that sooner or later you’re going to have to face the fact that what you most want can happen today, not tomorrow, but right now.

If you want it.

Yes it is that fuckin’ simple... The issue is that we buy into the conditioning that somehow we’re incomplete. We practice being miserable. We’re even proud of it – proud of our cynicism and bleak outlook. It’s really cool to be in touch with your misery. We seem to be trying to outdo one another in just how miserable we can all be and how cool we can look while feeling it. My even pointing out that happiness is attainable at this very moment is the height of being uncool.

I’ll leave you with something today and I know 99.99% of you will be too busy analyzing it and miss the forest for the trees, but if even one person actually tries this, then my own life is richer because there’ll be one less miserable person on this little plot of greenery we call Earth.

Just do it…shut the noise for a second…

The Practice

Think of something you really desire. It could be a new pair of shoes, a Benz, or that Grand prize: the ever so elusive “The One” – your soulmate, the perfect lover! Or, it could be twenty million dollars. Whatever comes to your mind first, something you really want, but don’t have.

Think of that... Got it?

Now, imagine that you have it. How would you act, right now? How would you feel, right now? Act and feel as if you had what you desire, right now. Breathe, move, speak, and adopt the facial expressions as if you had it. Act this way for a few minutes; become comfortable with the feeling of abundance that comes with having what you want.

Don’t just sit there and think about it, do it! Go!

Back?

Is acting and feeling this way basically better than how you were acting and feeling before you imagined having what you desire?

If the answer is yes, then continue acting and feeling this way! Why not allow yourself to feel this abundance now?!! Why are you still waiting for an excuse?

If the answer is that feeling this way is not better, then ignore and forget about the object of your desire because getting it won’t make you feel or act any better than how you’re acting now.

The saying goes that there are two great disappointments in life: not getting what you want and getting it. I’ll disagree with that. I will submit that there are desires that can lead us to be happier, but why wait?

A better way of putting it would be:

1. Act like you feel as if you had everything you wanted. Or…

2. Ignore your desires because they don’t lead to happiness anyway.

Either way, it’s a no-lose situation: you are free.

Love,

Eddie

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