Today's
quotation:
Happiness is not in our
circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we
see, like a rainbow, or feel, like
the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.
John B. Sheerin
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Today's
Meditation:
I
love these lines, especially the last sentence.
"Happiness is something we are." Very
simple, yet very profound, especially in the world that we
live in that focuses so much on doing and having, usually
at the expense of allowing us to focus on what we
are. We get so caught up in doing the tasks and
getting things that we want or think we need that we
usually don't even stop to think of just what we are.
Unfortunately,
we don't have all that many good examples to follow.
The people that our cultures label as
"successful" are the ones who have become
wealthy or famous or celebrities, but the truly successful
people--those who have become happy and who are living
happy, loving, giving lives--aren't often featured in our
newspapers or newscasts. We see the politicians and
the criminals and the athletes and the entertainment
"stars," but we don't see the people who can
truly inspire us to be happy just by being who we are.
You
can't buy happiness, and you can't take a picture of
it. You can't pack it up in a box and send it off to
your best friend. You can't give it as a birthday
gift, and you can't cut it in half and give some to
someone who needs it.
You
can allow yourself to be, and to be happy. You then
will shine like a beacon of peace and hope, and when
others see that you are happy, they will start observing
you more closely to see just what it is that makes you
happy. And you can serve as an example for all those
others who know that there's something missing, but who
don't realize that what's missing is their ability to be
themselves, their ability to just be and to be happy.
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