Happiness: Just BE It.

​Apparently my head is full of wonderings right now - maybe you, too have entertained similar wonderings at one time or another....?

Have you ever noticed if it's really true that your happiness depends on getting what you want? Or wanting what you have? 

In it's characteristic bossy way, the world likes to come up with measurements so we can know exactly how long and to what degree we're happy. The only catch is that those measurements are mostly based on getting something special or becoming someone special.

We've been told all the right things to do in order to be become "truly" happy, and if we aren't totally happy all the time, then we're doing something wrong, thinking something we shouldn't be... 

We're taught that having the right job, the right friendships, the right amount in your bank account, the right amount of health, the right amount of "stuff" - that should do it. But rarely does our assessment having the right stuff measure up.  Never enough, sigh...

But is happiness an outside project or is it part of our true nature which gets obscured when we're chasing or avoiding experiences. 

I can well remember being on the treadmill of acquiring and accomplishing, having been told those efforts would provide some degree of happiness, but just like Christmas day after all the presents have been opened, that feeling of satisfaction or fulfillment from getting or doing the things I thought I wanted diminished and I ended up feeling unsatisfied (again).

Happiness seems to be one of those fundamental states everyone wants to experience more of. But maybe it's not a state that can be achieved - what if it's already in our nature, our DNA, to be happy? 

If that's the case, is it a matter of activating it? How do you just BE it?

Are you like me in that you can look back over your life and see where you've responded to your circumstances by consciously or unconsciously by saying either "this is it" (meaning, I like this and want more of it) or "this isn't it" (meaning, I don't like this and I try to push it away)? 

There's nothing wrong with having preferences, but it seems that when they become a _prerequisite_ to just enjoying the moment, letting it unfold however it will (since we don't really have control over how it unfolds), those preferences block or distort the flow of life through us - and sometimes have significant (negative) consequences for those around me. And that dynamic of demanding followed by disillusionment or blame can be seen almost everywhere we look.

We all know we can't control our feelings or which thoughts come into our minds but if we let ourselves live from a deeper place inside ourselves we can dive beneath those arbitrary and constantly changing "states" so we can just be present to being alive, seeing the creativity, generosity, abundance, the already-taken-care-of-ness of each moment.

How much of the world - both inner and outer - do we really need to figure out or be in control of?

Will our little world fall apart if we stop grasping or pushing away what comes to us and take a look more deeply?

We might just see what George Harrison saw when he wrote in some of his lyrics: "life goes on within out without you."

We don't have to "do" happiness, we can just "be" happiness.