But, I Just Want To Be Happy!

Through the course of my life, I have taken a bit of a Taoist approach to life. When I was in college, practicing Kung Fu and Tai Chi, I enjoyed a little book of Chinese Proverbial Wisdom that I used to meditate on while I practiced my skills. The essential message is that the universe is 10,000 things, which puts in perspective the insignificance of our existence. I also happened to study astronomy in college, which made my awareness of the vastness of the universe both incomprehensible and comprehensible at the same time. The book had phrases to meditate on. One that I recall is, “The teeth are hard and fall out, the tongue is soft and remains.” In Tai Chi, the soft art, the strategy is to use the opponent’s momentum to defeat them. That meditation was one I contemplated many a time. Another, which I find meaningful, is, “If you don’t know here you’ve been, then you don’t know where you are.” That meditation reminded me to pay attention to where I am at all times.

It is also said that Buddha meditated for 49 days to achieve enlightenment.

Both Taoism and Buddhism put a great deal of intention on simply being present. As an aside, I do believe that being present is critical to pure living and the secret ingredient to finding happiness. What I discovered along my journey is that gratitude is your access to happiness. .

So, again, gratitude is your access to happiness.

Gratitude, Late Middle English: from Old French, or from medieval Latin gratitudo, from Latin gratus ‘pleasing, thankful’. Gratitude is a noun that means “the quality of being thankful”.

Every day, from the time we met and started dating, we engage in a gratitude practice before we fall asleep each day. We have a lot to be grateful for. We also make pointed effort to be witness to the world we live in and find things there to be grateful for. Our health, the fact we have access to food and shelter, the love we share, the aroma and beauty of spring flowers, the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, and so on.

In order to find gratitude, one has to be present to the moments we live in. So, the combination of being present and experiencing gratitude opens the door for happiness, which is a way of being, to emerge.

Happiness is like love. It is the state of being that emerges from the actions one takes to experience gratitude.

What’s so is that your partner is not going to make you happy. On the other hand, you experiencing gratitude (being thankful) that your partner is considerate and loving will allow you to experience happiness. You trying to be happy will not lead to your happiness. You contributing to others selflessly will find that their gratitude will enliven you and bring forth happiness.

Happiness is the feeling you feel when your lover looks at you with pure love in their heart. That feeling, being loved, is like the feeling you get when you smell a sweet rose for the first time in spring. That all arises from gratitude. You can control your experience of gratitude.

Remember, gratitude is your access to happiness.