on happiness
I've just come to a realization about happiness. I never knew what it was before. I actually still don't know what it is, but now I'm aware of this and I can pursue it.
What my realization is, is that if you find happiness difficult to find, it is because you don't know what it is and you aren't able to recognize it. Happiness is all around us, everywhere we go, every day. You can feel happiness without knowing what it is, just as an infant can feel gas without knowing what it is, or see light without knowing what it is.
If we continue thinking of this analogy, it's easy to see that the more you know about something, and the better you understand it, the easier it is to harness that thing. Consider the sun as an infant. You know nothing about it or its nature or its effects, but as you grow older you begin to notice its correlation with shadows and how the shadows aren't there when the sun isn't out. Then further you notice the correlation between the shadows and warmth, and you begin to put together that the sun provides the light, and the shadows are its absence, and that in absence of that light the temperature on your skin goes down. Now, with this knowledge you are able to regulate your comfort to a degree. If you are cold, you know to move out into the sunlight, and if you are hot, you find a spot with some shade.
Happiness is no different in that respect. It is all around you in life, in various places taking various forms; and you can feel its effects on you but you really don't understand how or why, in fact the very nature of happiness. As you grow older you begin to associate different things with this feeling of happiness and you begin to learn how to surround yourself with certain things and people or to manipulate your environment in ways which often bring these feelings of happiness to yourself.
But you don't always notice that it's not these things and people and these environments that are bringing you that feeling of happiness, there is something else, something deeper and perhaps more abstract to it. There is proof of this fact as well. Consider something that makes you happy, and then just think back to a time when it didn't make you happy. Or think of something that made you happy at one time but no longer does. Nothing changed about that thing at all, so where does the feeling go? This I think may be the key to a greater understanding of happiness and how to learn its true nature. And without knowing what that nature is and without having that understanding, I can still tell you this based upon everything else I've experienced in life: once you find that understanding, that knowledge of the true nature of happiness, it will be very easy to find under any circumstance. And I think that is something we are meant to pursue. That may even be what is meant in the bible by a "peace beyond understanding." What makes it beyond understanding is that most of us probably never realize there is more to it than what we see, so we never move past the point where we think that it's those things or people or environments that are making us happy. No wonder then that we get so frustrated when it stops working.
For my part, I'm going to try to figure this nature out because once I understand what happiness really is, it will be far easier to spread it around everywhere I go.
There's your food for thought for today. Hope you enjoy it!
What my realization is, is that if you find happiness difficult to find, it is because you don't know what it is and you aren't able to recognize it. Happiness is all around us, everywhere we go, every day. You can feel happiness without knowing what it is, just as an infant can feel gas without knowing what it is, or see light without knowing what it is.
If we continue thinking of this analogy, it's easy to see that the more you know about something, and the better you understand it, the easier it is to harness that thing. Consider the sun as an infant. You know nothing about it or its nature or its effects, but as you grow older you begin to notice its correlation with shadows and how the shadows aren't there when the sun isn't out. Then further you notice the correlation between the shadows and warmth, and you begin to put together that the sun provides the light, and the shadows are its absence, and that in absence of that light the temperature on your skin goes down. Now, with this knowledge you are able to regulate your comfort to a degree. If you are cold, you know to move out into the sunlight, and if you are hot, you find a spot with some shade.
Happiness is no different in that respect. It is all around you in life, in various places taking various forms; and you can feel its effects on you but you really don't understand how or why, in fact the very nature of happiness. As you grow older you begin to associate different things with this feeling of happiness and you begin to learn how to surround yourself with certain things and people or to manipulate your environment in ways which often bring these feelings of happiness to yourself.
But you don't always notice that it's not these things and people and these environments that are bringing you that feeling of happiness, there is something else, something deeper and perhaps more abstract to it. There is proof of this fact as well. Consider something that makes you happy, and then just think back to a time when it didn't make you happy. Or think of something that made you happy at one time but no longer does. Nothing changed about that thing at all, so where does the feeling go? This I think may be the key to a greater understanding of happiness and how to learn its true nature. And without knowing what that nature is and without having that understanding, I can still tell you this based upon everything else I've experienced in life: once you find that understanding, that knowledge of the true nature of happiness, it will be very easy to find under any circumstance. And I think that is something we are meant to pursue. That may even be what is meant in the bible by a "peace beyond understanding." What makes it beyond understanding is that most of us probably never realize there is more to it than what we see, so we never move past the point where we think that it's those things or people or environments that are making us happy. No wonder then that we get so frustrated when it stops working.
For my part, I'm going to try to figure this nature out because once I understand what happiness really is, it will be far easier to spread it around everywhere I go.
There's your food for thought for today. Hope you enjoy it!