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Today's
Meditation:
We're never
going to "reach" happiness. Some of us
think that we can do so-- if we only do things right now,
we'll have enough money, just the right spouse, a nice
house, the perfect job-- and we'll finally be happy.
But when we think this way, we tend not to see the
blessings that abound in our lives every day, and we fail
to see that everything that we need to be happy is here in
our lives every single day.
I
used to fall into the trap myself. I used to think
that as soon as certain things happened, I'd finally leave
behind frustration and depression and be happy with my
life. But those things didn't happen, and I had to
learn the hard way sometimes that my happiness was mostly
my decision, mostly the ways that I looked at my life and
all that was in it. The conditions of my life might
not have been exactly what I wanted or exactly what I
thought they should be, but they were plenty rich enough
for me to be quite a happy person. I just didn't see
it because I was waiting for conditions to be met before I
would even consider being happy with the way things are.
I've
flown to Europe quite a few times, and it's always nice to
have a European city as my destination. When I get
on the plane, though, I know I have quite a bit of time to
spend there, so I do my best to enjoy the journey, as
well. I have a good book ready, I find out what
movies I might watch, I have good music ready. I
don't want the journey to be a drag, because there's too
much to enjoy during that journey for me to miss out on
it.
The
way we see things has much to do with how we live our
lives. If we think that we have to defer happiness
to a time when certain conditions are met, then we're
going to be unable to be happy right here and right now,
which is really the only time we do have to be
happy. Our journeys can be extremely challenging and
we may have some very specific goals in mind, but we do
need to remember that the paths we are on hold many
beautiful and wonderful experiences and people and places,
and it's up to us to do our best to be happy with where we
are and what we have, even while we're still working
towards the goals that we look forward to reaching.
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