How To Be Happy Damn It
How To Be Happy Damn It
How To Be Happy Damn It
WARNING!
You think about 60,000 thoughts a day. It’s up to you to make sure that
you don’t use up 59,999 of them with negative, cynical thinking.
So next time, before you start to think something negative, just think
about that … and this: Your brain has 100 billion cells – and each of
these little babies is connected to at least 20,000 other cells. The
variety of potential combinations of all these is more multitudinous than
the number of molecules existing in the entire universe! So, if you have
that many different combinations of brain cells to choose from, why not
try a new combo today?
Guilt-free.
Sugar-free.
Caffeine-free.
You are noble and pure.
Then suddenly…
WHACK!
You are spanked. Really hard. This is unfair. You have
done nothing wrong. You know that for a fact.
HOW?
You haven’t had time to do anything – period.
You are only 3 ½ seconds old.
You haven’t had time to catch your breath, let alone time to covet a
neighbor or furtively screen calls on your answering machine. You don’t
even have an answering machine yet. You don’t even have people to avoid
yet – you are that spanking new.
Of course, had you been told this at that time, you still would
not have understood with your naïve lil’ baby mind.
And so it goes for much of the pain in your life. Often you
need to evolve a bit more before you can understand a bit more.
Happiness is not about what happens to you, how you choose to respond
to what happens. That’s why it’s called happiness not happen ness –
though it could be called hope-ness. You must always leave room for hope
that all has happened for good cause.
Or to quote the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:
You feel this Arty guy’s got it pretty right. What he says reminds
you of a tip your gardener friend told you…
“Some plants are only meant to last for a certain season or a certain
time, (said your garden friend). If you try to make them live longer, you
will be a bad gardener.”
You were struck by how the same goes for people and jobs, how sometimes it
seems people and jobs – and/or problems in general – are brought into your
life for certain reasons, to stay around for a certain time, to teach you
certain things.
Of this you are certain.
For instance they’ve taught you …
And just like a plant, you too are governed by the same laws of nature.
Spring Law
Summer Law
Fall Law
Winter Law
You have tried your best to break these four laws … but they’ve been more
successful at breaking you.
For instance, at some point in your year (every year) it seems life
hits a “winter phase” of coldness and darkness with very little
growth and fertility – a phase that gets you thinking:
Oh no.
That’s it, my life is over.
Everything good is gone.
your winter phase ends and the Spring Law arrives to spring you
free in a phase filled with renewal and growth and brightness.
Then comes your summer phase, followed by your fall phase,
followed by winter, spring, summer, etc … etc …
Which brings you to …
All too often fear stops you from going where you need to go.
Which brings you to …
A STORY IN A BOX
“The Elephant Truly Never Forgets”
The first trick the elephant trainer teaches an elephant is not to
escape. When the elephant is still but a baby, the trainer chains the
infant’s leg to a huge log, so when/if the elephant tries to escape,
the log proves stronger and he gives up. Eventually the elephant
becomes so used to its captivity, that even when it has grown huge and
strong, all the trainer has to do is merely tie the chain around the
elephant’s leg to anything – even a tiny little twig – and the
elephant won’t even try to escape.
It has become a prisoner of its past.
This elephant and its twig remind you of you and your childhood. Though you
believe childhood habits can be broken. You say: childhood shmildhood. In fact,
you often feel yours was more of a “shmildhood.” And your parents were more
often like “shmarents.”
But, so what?
That was then. This is now. Time has passed. You can let go.
Move on … Can’t you?
Yes, you can …
Step back from that twig!
The trick is: you must first see it’s only a silly lil’ twig.
Which brings you to …
You must remove these blinders you’ve been wearing since “shmildhood” and
take a long look both inside and around you.
But … at first you feel it’s safer – healthier – for these blinders to
remain on. So much so, you confuse these blinders for Band-Aids. Band-
Aids that can heal you. But you are wrong . These Pseudo Band-Aids won’t
heal you.
(Ouch)
Unfortunately you are also afraid to remove these Pseudo Band-
Aids because you believe it will hurt a lot to remove them –
which is true. But this pain won’t last for long – and it
(ironically) will be your true and only path to healing.
Which brings you to …
Like …
Boy, have I been leading the life of an idiot – that’s only a teeny lil’
twig. In fact, I pit the I into Idiot …
Not you.
You like to see yourself as 100% Superman, with 0% Clark Kent.
Otherwise, all you’ll ever be is a wimp in fancy tights who can’t fly.
Which reminds you of another story …
You relate.
Often you feel you are an eagle living the life of a mere
chicken.
- Or working with a chicken.
- Or sleeping with a chicken.
Although you know: eagles are fearless. Chickens live up to their name
“chicken” – and live by fear.
And you know: an eagle’s first step to living the life of an eagle is to
face all fears.
And an eagle’s first and #1 fear is: “What will my chicken friends think
if I start to live differently?”
Which brings you to …
You realize: being who you want to be, and doing what you want to do, is
self-respect. But that’s not all, folks. It’s also one of your Pot of
Primordial Stew Club Membership Duties. Something even your Pot Mate
the flower knows to wisely cash in on. A flower instinctively goes
toward the light. It doesn’t spend time worrying if people will mistake
it for a weed or if it’s taking too much sun. It wisely and simply
follows its primal flower gut instincts to attain its highest level of
flowerosity.
Conversely, you – and your busy, busy brain – have been programmed
to think, think, think – and so you have been ignoring your hearts
instincts. Just like that eagle in its chicken days.
It’s when the eagle finally followed its heart that her life
finally began to soar.
Which brings you to …
In other words, before you write your to-do list of what you want, you
have to write your to un-do list and your to-don’t list. So you get a
piece of paper and you write down the following six categories: money,
love, sex, family, power, happiness. Next to each of these categories
you write down your negative views – your fears, your guilts, your
insecurities – that you must un-learn and un-feel.
Money
Love
Sex
Family
Power
Happiness
For instance, you ask yourself what negative views you have about money.
Like: Do you believe all rich people are superficial jerks – hence if
you become rich you too might become a superficial jerk? Do you suffer
from Keeping Down with the Joneses syndrome? Do you feel guilty about
surpassing your friends – and/or parents – in wealth? If so, you must
un-learn and un-feel these negative ideas and negative emotions … And
you find that when you trade in these negative beliefs and emotions for
positive ones, you start getting more in harmony and receiving money.
You start seeing money everywhere.
Even in the word harmony, which suddenly now looks to you like harmoney.
Ok …
Let’s say you are capable of finding these negative emotions…
but unsure how to truly loose them once you’ve found them.
What then?
How can you truly make sure you un-learn and un-feel all your
negativity?
The answer: play a little game called
“Find the Meaning in Life’s Past Meannesses.”
In part ONE of this game, you “Return to the Scene of the Crime” and
playact detective. You track down your most bad, dark, depressing –
grumble/grumble/ grumble – childhood (and even recent) memories that
lead you to your original negative beliefs and emotions.
In part TWO of this game, you “Return to the Scene of the Sublime.” Now
you must playact Hollywood screenwriter and find the meaning in your
suffering. You must rewrite these events so you see them as something
positive – just like a Hollywood screenwriter generously allows his
fictional movie character to eventually – cluck! Oh yeah! – see the
fortune in their misfortune by story’s end!
Which brings you to …
The only difference between these two clubs is: those very successful
people who are members of the Fortune 500 Club know that when/if you
fall on your face, you must use the leverage to bounce back higher.
Which brings you to …
So you try to spend more time being present – and less time
being busy. Though granted, things have gotten a heck more
hectic since you were born. You now even have an answering
machine. (You now even have people to avoid on this answering
machine.)
You also know that sometimes you can get so outrageously busy that you
could pass by a troll standing on the street corner waving a million
bucks at you … and you might not even notice.
Meaning?
You know the same approach works for the complicated fancy
footwork it takes to switch out of a bad relationship or a bad
career. At first glance it looks like so much effort. Then
when you relax you see what the Buddhists see … the 1,000-
miles journey begins with one step.
It’s like how in the movies, folks like Clint or Sylvester or
Sigourney know to remain cool and calm even when their futures look
bleak and doomed. Although these people are often called “action
heroes,” masters of the art of staying still within – of being
fully, deeply present.
So once a day you just sit, stop, become a human still life.
Do nothing.
Be nothing.
Except breath. You become at one with your breath. You breathe. In
and out. In and out. In and out. You shhhhhh and ignore the shhhhh*t.
You’ve found that once you’ve opened your eyes from meditation, that’s
when you see stuff like …
Whaddayaknow …
That chain around your leg is attached to a teeny-weeny twig.
Whaddayaknow …
You are really an eagle who longs to soar in the sky. All you have to
do is flap!
Which brings you to …
Some may call this good fortune “synchronicity.” Some may call it
“luck.” Some may call it “intuition.” Some may call it Ralph.
(Admittedly very few people, though.” Some may call it “tapping into
the collective unconscious.”
Both form and formlessness are connected within the same vibrating
field all around you. All molecules are energy – and all energy is
in motion at varying speeds – all around you, at all times.
Yes,
Thoughts, too, have
Energy.
In other words:
The only difference between you and this book are the configuration
and speed of your molecules.
Otherwise, you and this book are made of the same stuff, vibrating
in the same interconnected field.
OK, it’s Metaphor Time …
A METAPHOR IN A BOX
“Field Goals”
You are like a tiny fish surrounded by a field of water but unable
to see this water. What’s going on in this field around you sends
out waves that affect you. Likewise, what you do – and think –
sends out waves into this field around you. This includes your
negative thoughts – which can create distracting tidal waves that
block you from seeing how to best get to your goal.
(Huh?)
The explanation:
You are like a tiny fish surrounded and connected to the energy
field that originated from that pot of Bubbling Primordial Stew.
You – yes, lil’ ol’ you – are connected to all the infinite
knowledge found in this original macro Primordial Stew ocean.
The explanation of the explanation: If you shift your awareness from
the ordinary – which can be done through meditation as well as basic
relaxation – you can sense this infinite, invisible, vibrating, all-
knowing energy that is within you and around you, and can tap into that
stuff that some call intuition, some call synchronicity, some call
Ralph.
The explanation of the explanation of the explanation: When you are calm
within, you can better see the order in the chaos – almost as if you have been
given a secret map of this chaos that shows you the paths you need to take to
get where you need to go!
FOR EXAMPLE:
PART 1
This infinite, invisible, vibrating, all-knowing energy is what dogs tap
into when they sense an earthquake coming.
FOR EXAMPLE:
PART 2
And what moms tap into when they sense that their distant baby is in
danger.
FOR EXAMPLE
PART 3
And what you tap into when you think of a person and then they call you
moments later.
FOR EXAMPLE
PART 4 to 1,000,000,000
And what you tap into when you meet the very type of person that you
have in your head that you’ve been needing to meet – in business and/or
love etc., etc.
And look at the harmonic resonance – which you can look at, on any two
guitars. When an “E” string is plucked on one, it will resonate on the
other. You believe harmonic resonance works with people, too. When
you speak openly from your heart, the hearts of others seem to open.
This is because you are helping the people around you to vibrate at your
same higher harmonic level. You’ve heard this called “companion
energy.” And you believe that in the same way the invisible germs of a
cold can be contagious, or the invisible oxygen dynamics of a yawn can
be contagious, the invisible energy of thoughts are contagious.
Resonate
Your Local Quantum Physicist has even documented how the brain
has electrical energy that gives off varying vibrations
depending upon thoughts and mood. Because like energy
attracts like energy, it makes sense that positivity might
indeed attract positive results – even “positive, lucky
coincidences.”
You believe that this may also explain why the rich get
richer, why misery loves company, and why whenever you’ve
already got a paramour it’s way easier to get a paramour.
And this is also why fear attracts fear. Like your fear of
not being able to fall asleep always seems to attract the
problem of your not being able to fall asleep. Ditto for your
fear of falling in love. Ditto for your fear of being too
successful.
Which brings you to …
Self-fulfilling programming
So if you want to change your outer world, you must first change your
internal mental programming. When you try to change the external world
first, it’s like trying to change the picture on a TV screen by rubbing
that picture with a cloth. You can rub, and rub, and rub – but it’s
futile, baby.
However … when you change your mental programming – who you are thinking
you are and what you are thinking you deserve – you find the world
around you changes simultaneously.
Which brings you to …
And the tiniest actions can also create reactions within your brain, heart, and
body. Your Local Neurologist has even documented how the “action” of the mere
twitch of a smile can set of the “reaction” of a stream of happy endorphins
throughout your body. It seems the smile forces certain facial muscles to
contract, which decreases the flow of blood in nearby vessels, which cools the
body, which lowers the temperature of the brain stem, which then produces more
of a neurotransmitter called serotonin – which then put you in a perkier mood.
Plus your Local Neurologist has also documented how a person who is happy is
better able to retrieve happy thoughts/ideas from their brain because these
information bits are simmering at similar temperatures.
Which leads you to …
Work
+
Time
+
Faith
=
Results
You must not give up your faith.
Believing is seeing.
Which reminds you of an old joke …
“H2-Uh-Oh”
A man was drowning in the ocean, hoping maybe God might save him.
Soon, a small boat rowed up and offered to help him, but he, still
testing to see if God would save him, sent the boat away. Next a
big yacht came by and offered to help him, but he sent the yacht
away, again testing to see if God would save him. Next a helicopter
flew by and offered to throw down a ladder, but the man sent this
helicopter away, still holding out for God to save him. Soon after,
he drowned. When this man got up to heaven, he asked God why He
didn’t save him? God explained, “Who do you think sent the boat,
the yacht, and the helicopter?”
YOU KNOW: You’re being sent boats, yachts, and helicopters all the
time. You just have to jump on board. Actually, this is also the
divine principle behind the ordinary story of a girl ultimately marrying
the boy next door – how/why/when she finally notices he’s right next
door.
IN OTHER WORDS: If you want to find a loving, sexy, communicative soul
mate, you have to first believe in the existence of such a creature, so
you can recognize this creature when it walks by – and not to give up on
your search.
AND IN SOME MORE WORDS: If you believe a building exists, then even
if you get lost on your way to finding it, you’ll keep driving because
you know it exists. And you know what you’re looking for.
Which brings you to …
You hear that joke and you know: you don’t want to be a Groucho
Marxist when it comes to compromise.
You want to resist setting for second best, or third best, or 127th best,
when your #1 choice seems scary or slow in coming.
You see: if you cowardly settle for only the 5s life gives you (in
lovers, friends, jobs, shoes, etc.), then you won’t live a 10 life.
Even if you gather a million 5s (i.e. a million 5-level lovers), because
you’ll still be creating a median of a 5 life. Not the 10 life you
want. Not the satisfying life you want.
You realize: this is also why sometimes after you get a 5 something –
you do not want that 5 something – because it is the wrong something –
selected by the fearful, insecure 5-esque something inside you – that
perky 5-esque phantom of your 5-dom past, who holds you back with those
convictions that life can only come in 5-osity flavor.
The sooner the eagle flies the coop, the sooner the high-flying eagle
livin’ begins. Though you also know it’s scary to let go.
They spend too much time looking at all the dangers that can happen if
they let go.
Not you.
But you also know that … it’s hard to let go. It takes great emotional
strength and endurance to climb up to another level.
You also know, the more you climb upward, the stronger you will get
because you will be building up your emotional muscles over time.
Which brings you to …
Build
It just took time, dammit.
Pain = lucky
So you remind yourself to remind yourself that next time you feel
emotional pain that you are lucky. You are getting stronger. Things
are improving – although you might not see it right away. It’s like
when your home was being painted and it looked its utmost worst. Total
chaos. However, underneath this chaos was renovation in motion. And
because you were aware that this painting action was leading to a more
beautiful home, you could relax, breathe easily, accepting the chaos
around you. Same goes with your life.
Which reminds you of something very deep and wise your painter told you
as he headed out the door midday for pizza: “You can’t paint over a wet
coat,” he said. “You gotta wait for it to dry, otherwise you keep
painting and painting and you get nowhere, you know?”
Process
Which leads you to …
LIFE LESSON #37:
Often doing less, gets you more.
Truly:
Less
Is more … more or less.
Getting what you want does not always mean hard work and struggle.
Often, it’s when you relax and stop resisting that what you want can't
resist you. The Taoists advise about this: “Be careful not to turn over
a fish too many times or it shall fall apart.” However, the Taoists
also believe in duality, meaning – the opposite of this is also true.
Which brings you to …
Pro-active
Or as Roseanne once said: “The thing women have got to learn is that
nobody gives you power. You just take it.” You know Roseanne is right.
Whether you be a man or you be a woman – you are your own waiter in this
café called Life. You decide what to serve yourself – the cheeseburgers
of existence or the caviar and champagne treatment.
And you also know that when the money does come (as it will) that …
True success is not about making lots of moola so you can get yourself
expensive toys for your ego – nor is it about getting yourself a cute,
sexy person for your ego. True success is about satisfying your spirit
with spirit things. For instance, your ego looks at a cute, sexy person
and says, “Yum, yum. I want that person.” But your spirit is smarter.
It looks at loving, joyous couples and thinks, “Mmmm, I want that joy,
that happiness, that love.”
Your spirit wisely knows: it’s not a mate’s superficial qualities that
ultimately makes you happy, but the dynamic this mate and you have
together – and the blissful feelings this mate can give you in your true
(and eagle) heart. Which reminds you of a lesson you learned reading
The Little Prince: “It is only the heart that one can see rightly; what
is most important is invisible to the eye.” And with this in mind – and
heart – you decide to let this wise spirit of yours do all your life
shopping. And with this in mind – and heart – you also decide: next
time a paramour’s not gonzo, then you’re gone-zo. Because you now know:
a paramour without love is merely an empty container. And who wants an
empty container? The container is not the sustainer. You must not
confuse the bottle for the juice. The bottle might satisfy your ego,
but only the juice can feed your heart.
Which brings you to …
And all this Love-mania reminds you of a Zen saying: “Basically the
archer aims at himself.”
If you are not a happy person inside you, then nothing outside you will
ever make you happy and able to feel love.
This makes sense because you already know from Lesson #27 how the world
is your mirror.
It thereby makes sense that if you can increase how happy and loving you
feel about yourself on the inside, the more happiness and love you will
see and attract from the world around you to you.
Soon the simplest things around you can bring you happiness and
loving feelings – like the way a beam of light shines on a flashy
sports-car – instead of the sports-car itself.
Or the sight of a perfect flower –
Or an imperfect flower.
Which brings you to …
Love energy
Which brings you to …
Amscray.