6.
Understanding where to find happiness
NOTE:
This is an excerpt from the book The
Least You Should Know About Life.
What do you really want from life? Most people would say they want happiness.
Yet when asked how they could attain happiness, they often describe
a set of outer conditions that they assume will make them happy. “If
I had this, this and this, I would be happy.” The problem with
this line of reasoning – or lack of reasoning – is that
it makes your happiness dependent upon outer conditions, conditions
that can be difficult to control.
The consequence of the belief that happiness is a product of outer conditions
is that if you don’t have this or that, you cannot be happy. This
is a lie. It is a lie that has been programmed into your mind by those
who want to sell you something or control you. “If only you buy
our products, you will be happy.” “If only you follow my
religion or political system, you will be happy.” “Follow
me and I will take you to paradise” [on Earth or elsewhere].
Some of these people may have good intentions, but their attempts to
make you happy are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause
of happiness. What is happiness? It is a sensation that takes place
inside of you; it is a state of mind. Where is the logic in assuming
that an inner condition – a state that occurs inside your mind
– is the automatic and exclusive product of conditions that occur
outside your mind?
The sun is perfectly capable of producing light from its own internal
processes. It needs nothing from outside itself in order to produce
light. Your mind has the potential to become a sun that radiates happiness,
peace and love, as the sun radiates light.
You have been programmed to think that there is logic behind the assumption
that happiness must come from without. The programming is so subtle
and persuasive that most people never bother to take a closer look at
the logic. As a consequence, they live their entire lives pursuing an
impossible dream. Their lives are swallowed up by an endless quest to
bring about the outer conditions that supposedly will produce the inner
state of happiness.
Some manage to bring about a set of conditions that supposedly should
bring happiness. Yet when they realize they still don’t feel happy,
they reason that they need something else, or they need more of what
they already have—more money, more possessions, more sex or whatever.
Yet is it logical to assume that if something does not make you happy,
having more of that something will make you happy?
When you fall prey to this assumption, you become like the donkey pulling
a cart because it is trying to reach the carrot dangling in front of
its nose. Yet the carrot is hanging from a rod attached to the cart,
so as the donkey moves forward, it only pushes the carrot in front of
itself.
You can spend the rest of your life chasing the impossible dream of
attaining happiness through outer circumstances, or you can decide to
take a different approach. You can decide to look for a higher understanding
of happiness and how to bring it about.
You can begin by observing those who do find happiness. These are the
people who come to the point where they refuse to play the game of seeking
happiness outside themselves. They realize that because happiness is
an inner condition, it can be brought about only from within yourself.
This, of course brings us back to choice, and it leads to a startling
conclusion: HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE!
Ever since childhood, you have been programmed to reject this idea.
You have been programmed to believe that you cannot make yourself happy,
that you need something or someone from outside yourself in order to
be happy. Yet is it true? And do you have the courage to seriously consider
this question? If so, you need to start by understanding your relationship
to the universe in which you live.
7.
Understanding the basic fact about the universe
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Copyright
© 2007 by Kim Michaels |
