“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy.
I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?”
Charles Schultz
Yesterday I took my little daughter to her first day of kindergarten and through her yes I saw myself going to school on my first day.
And I remembered – like it was yesterday - the wonder and excitement, the mixture of thrill and anxiety and that feeling of entering a new phase of my life, a new experience.
And at that moment I realized – No - I felt in every cell of my body, that I have nothing to learn, that all I have to do is to remember.
Through the eyes of a five years old I saw what happiness is:
Happiness is to love life totally, absolutely and unconditionally.
Happiness is:
To love the sunny day for chasing the butterflies and the rainy days for playing in the puddles.
To love things for the joy they bring, not for how much they cost.
To love people for the love they give, not for who they are or what they can do for you.
To love yourself because you are love.
To be happy because you don’t need anybody’s permission.
No, there is no secret to happiness.
(I am sure that if there was it would be for sale on eBay.)
Of course there is pleasure for sale, but that it will only empty your soul even more because pleasure is a tax on your soul and the more you get it, the less it will stimulate you.
In search of that illusory high which we mistake for happiness, the path of pleasure will take you only to the path of extreme
And at the end you will be spent, empty and burned out
Happiness is not in what you get.
Happiness is in what you give.
I know that sounds insane but it is true…
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13 comments:
The C. Schultz quote was said by Snoopy.
Children are stupid though. See the world through the eyes of a highly trained expert, right?
I don't think children are stupid, but they are as yet inexperienced. Some experiences they get will build them up - others will tear them apart. I don't recall being that happy as a kid: my childhood was all about being scared and not feeling particularly well loved. I actually like it better here now that I'm older.
Flux ,
Are you saying ignorance is bliss ?
Man you must be one happy guy :)
Sorry Buddha .
He does have a point . It is easier to be happy when you are ignorant to the troubles around you. I believe that happiness is what you make out of life. I do the best I can with what I'm given. However there times that I'm jealous of people who seem to have an "easier" go of it. Then I'm reminded that like time, happiness is relevant to the observer.
And then there are times that I just want to be sad. Without knowing sadness, how can you appreciate happiness ?
Whatever, winning = happiness, losing = learning then try again, but if the losses are great enough then that means big loss = great sadness....one must recover from great sadness in order to win and thereby gain more happiness.
Note: If winning comes too easily then either train your competitor or get a new competitor, right? Although, there's almost always a new competitor for us to beat. Sometimes our greatest competitor is better suited than us, in which case we need be merciless, but in other cases our greatest competitor is below our level of competition in which case we train them through a forced merger or move on to the next greater competitor we can come up with.
@ Ted – Who knew Snoopy was a Buddhist?
Who knew dogs can talk?
@ Quantum – I prefer to think they are innocent and we are stupid.
@ Argent – I was blessed with an idyllic childhood.
It went all downhill from there!
@ Flight – WE have to agree to disagree!
Other wise it would be just repeating one another.
Any way –
I f ignorance is bliss, then is chronic coma the state of perfect happiness?
I think the question we might first answer is; what is happiness?
@ Quantum – No, no, no…
Happiness doesn’t have anything to do with it.
There is nothing to win and nothing to loose.
Winning and loosing are an illusion, a game.
Again,
Happiness is relevant to the observer.
One person could celebrate getting a $300.00 paycheck . And the other would be jumping off a bridge for being a failure .
I love cycling up a 15% grade till my knees burn , and others would see that as punishment.
It's all relevant. Isn't that why you meditate ... to look inside yourself to find your source of happiness ?
Flux , sorry I was in a mood and out of line.
BOH, we are all innocent until proven guilty, in a legal sense at least. By my morality system, it's entirely possible for somebody to be immoral without knowing about it, the same ignorance that a child possesses is the key to rampant immorality in society. It requires an education to learn all about conserving energy and wealth, staying healthy and fit, gaining power and influence, and defending the will and rights of others while fighting for your group....those are the keys to being moral, and no child can obtain that morality without a proper education, i.e. the wisdom of being childlike is folly.
@ Flight – I meditate in order to free the happiness, love, intelligence and creativity that are inherent to being a human being.
I believe in a absolute happiness without a cause or object.
To say that happiness is the result of something outside you is like saying that love is the result of sex.
Your celebration of the $300 gain is because you are a happy person not the other way around.
So all these external factors only trigger the happiness that we have inside.
As you hinted no amount of money or anything else will make an unhappy person happy.
@ Quantum – Innocence and ignorance are not one and the same as ignorance and lack of education are not the same either.
The wisdom of being child like is the wisdom of not having an ego not the wisdom of not having an education.
You don’t need to have an education or a degree to be enlightened.
As for moral values you are saying and I quote: “gaining power and influence, and defending the will and rights of others while fighting for your group...”
If only the powerful and influential people that fight for their group are moral then I am the most immoral person ever – well maybe Mother Theresa was more immoral than me.
To quote BOH "You don’t need to have an education or a degree to be enlightened.
....famous last words of the bottom feeder.
@ Scruffy - I have a college education and degree.
I make a better than average living.
I have a wonderful family and a good life.
Why are you calling me a bottom feeder?
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