HAPPINESS

Do most of us really understand happiness? Do we ever find ourselves hanging on to something we think we should be unsatisfied with? Don't we sometimes postpone being happy until something gets resolved?

Whatever the current conditions in our lives, it has little to do with happiness. If we observe ourselves, we will find that we turn on happiness like a switch. We can go to place to place and turn our mood from sour to bright like a chameleon turning colors. I can be in a rather somber mood and guests come over and I light up like a Christmas tree. Likewise, I have found myself lighting up when I go into one of the stores we frequent.

I have experimented enough to realize this brightening up is voluntary. It is under my control. It is not the outside conditions that determine when we throw the happiness switch. Happiness seems to be a minute by minute decision we make.

Yet, sometimes we seem to prefer to wallow in our unhappiness; interesting. Just this Morning I was grossing about something, in my mind, and I caught myself feeling, that the situation had to rectify itself, before I would be happy. Fortunately, the time was measured in seconds rather than minutes or hours. But I have known people that seemed to wallow in misery for months when they could have merely decided it wasn't necessary to be unhappy.

Our materialistic culture encourages us to forgo happiness until we attain certain goods or parameters. We sometimes go through life chasing a carrot on a stick. We can't quite relax into happiness until some desire is fulfilled.

What would happen in the World, if everybody decided to be happy right now? Can we imagine how intensely it would light up?  Light and love would wash away every worry in the world, right now. We are all beacons of light. We can pull our shades down or let them up. When we let our shades up and let our light beam out, we brighten those around us. The light multiplies as the shades go up and folks let their light beam out.

It all begins with us. How would we know if paradise were here if we are wallowing around in some dreck? If we had our shade pulled down we wouldn't be able to see. Yes, it is all inside us. All knowledge. All experience. We Are and we are One. Paradise is in each one of us and all of us. Find the switch. Turn on the light. Raise the shade. Let us out picture our dreams. Let paradise unfold.

Love and Peace,  Gregg