10/19/2019
Many think, I used to think this as well, that to be happy you must fill exalted and exited. When good things happen to us we naturally feel good and elated, it's a natural human response. Good things make us feel good and what we consider not good, make us feel bad. A natural child and human response.
The sense of happiness I'm describing here is not the mere result of a reaction to some happy event but is rather the state of being of our spirit, the acceptance that there will always be things that we have not control of, which we feel are bad and make us angry or sad. True happiness in my estimation is being at peace, not letting our emotions, either good or bad determine our inner balance.
How many times those things I considered bad, latter where the very things which help me learn and grow. Experiences such as, illnesses, poverty, abuse, ignorance, depression, anxiety, fear... on and on, are nothing more than teachers, though we may see them as tormentors, when they first strike at us.
We are taught to live in this world using our five senses. Therefore we estimate that happiness must be having good things and good feelings. We are thought to judge in order to survive in this world. And that is fine up to a point, if we don't look before crossing the street, we take our chances at getting hit by a car.
We are taught that happiness is outside of us, we look for entertainment, material things, and people to make us happy. We look for support and words from others to value who we are, it is the normal thing a child does. It is the normal process of the primitive survival geared mind.
Some of us have not have the blessing of having parents that were happy within themselves, we've been verbally and physically abused, publicly ridiculed, beaten, not validated/ignored, minimized and made to feel sick and disconnected etc... we've come from broken homes and broken people trying to raise us as best they knew how. We are trying to heal and grow. We are all seeking to be happy. We are all seeking support from an exterior world and from people, it's natural. But as we mature and awake, we realize that no person, entertainment or thing can ever truly give you the happiness you need. We need to stop comparing ourselves with others or taking to heart their estimation of us. We need to revise and update the old programing in our minds given to us by our parents, school, the world. We have to learn to forgive others, love and accept our selves to find true happiness.