Close your eyes and stay calm for 15 seconds. What do you see with your eyes closed? The obstacles you are facing? Your next tasks? Or perhaps it is difficult for you to do nothing in this moment, to not rush to your daily chores.
When happiness leaks out from our life due to daily struggle, stress, worries and the busyness of life, we stop being conscious, and we miss out not only on the beauty and importance of our existence, but also on the gifts that life and the Universe offer us in abundance.
The level of our consciousness is directly linked to the level of our happiness. The higher the level of our consciousness, the more happiness we are able to create in life for ourselves and for others.
Where did we lose the ability to enjoy our life as it is, to be in the moment, to stay conscious of our own being?
When we let ourselves to get “connected” to too many distractions that take over our lives, we get disconnected from our true nature. It isn’t our iPhone, computer or the Internet that keep us in tune with what’s important to us. Happiness slips through our fingers, day after day, when we are chasing the things we don’t need: short-lived satisfaction, the greener grass on the other side of the fence, digital information that clogs our minds with messages taking us away from this very moment, in which we are designed to live.
In this very moment, life happens to us. When we are disconnected from this moment, we tune out from who we are, and we tune out from our happiness.
We are approaching times when much that we have built our world upon will quickly fall apart. Soon technology will provide us with all we need: 3D printers are already available, and labs producing real leather will soon lead to labs commercially producing real food, vehicles, houses, etc. Money will disappear, not needed, not wanted anymore. What will happen when everyone can have everything they want, at any time they want? Will we experience happiness just because we will have what we want?
When we try to find happiness in owning things, the hunger never stops. We always want more. There aren’t enough things in the world to make us happy.
Happiness is a process. Discovering our life purpose is also a process. Happiness and living one’s life purpose go hand in hand. Nothing makes us happier than following our heart, doing what we love and knowing that we serve a purpose that is beneficial to ourselves, as well as others. Dharma — purpose, as spoken of in some philosophies — holds that there are no spare parts in the Universe. Each of us is born with a unique set of talents and a perspective that has never been expressed in the world before. So, to fulfill our unique, wonderful purpose, we need to be true to ourselves, and trust the part inside of us that has been trying to direct us to our higher purpose.
No matter what our purpose, once we commit to finding it, it will fill our heart with happiness, inspiration and satisfaction with life. When we replace our mind’s desires with the heart-driven ones, we are able to create what we want in the world.
Now turn off your cellphone. Take off your headphones. Close your computer and step outside. Breathe in the fresh air. Walk to the nearest tree. Touch its trunk and look up. Do you feel its happiness? Yes, that tree is happy, unless injured or neglected. That tree knows the gift of happiness.
The gift of happiness is ours to give, and take. No power in the world can take it away from us.
The gift of happiness can be found in our next breath, in harmony with the rhythm of our heart, in tune with the nature that surrounds us. We are part of the most beautiful world. We are designed to be thriving, evolving and growing into our own power. We are meant to know happiness. Let us be happy. Let us be alive.
