Why Aren't We Happy?

Daughter Dear asked me yesterday why everyone is so grumpy.

Are they?

Are we?

Americans aren’t the happiest people on the planet, yet we enjoy untold creature comforts. And even the most menial of jobs pay more than many in the world.

What is it?

Are we spoiled? Don’t we have enough challenges to keep our minds away from dwelling on how we’ve been done wrong, or how we’ve failed, or how we don’t have the riches of those who are daily shoved in our faces, on the television, Instagram, Facebook, etc.

All around us are ads showing smiling faces and beautiful people frolicking in the sun—free from allergies made gone by some medication that carries more risks to our health than the pollen that is sprouting in our noses.

I told my daughter a story about a blind turtle that lives in the depths of the ocean. Once every 1,000 years he surfaces for a breath.  

One the surface of the ocean floats a wooden ring. 

What are his chances that he will poke his snout through that ring?

About the same chance of you being born.

Of course, there could be another explanation as to why we are here. If our soul is eternal, and we have a choice to come here or not, we would find a way to get here with the parents we have or another set.

Either way, we have won the genetic lottery.

Maybe we chose consciously, maybe we didn’t.

Maybe we got the body we wanted, maybe we didn’t. 

Maybe we chose a beautiful body, but it would spend its life in a wheelchair. 

Maybe we didn’t.

There are a lot of maybes out there.

I do know that we are fighting resistance all along the way.

Resistance is a word I learned from Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art. 

We could call it procrastination, but I believe it is more than that. There is something inside us that resists the very thing that is either good for us or is our soul’s calling.

Maybe that’s where people got the idea of a devil.

I don’t think there is a little horned creature standing on your shoulder. 

I think it’s biology or psychology. Either way, it’s the way the brain works.

Remember the brains' job isn’t to make us happy, it’s to keep us alive—and it’s constantly on the lookout for danger.

Pressfield told of how he resisted writing—yet it was his soul’s calling. And artists, of which we all are, are not happy unless they are doing the thing that our souls call us to do.

We resist in other ways, like going to the doctor and not following their advice.

I did that recently. My naturopath gave me dandelion tea to drink along with a dandelion tincture.” Two or three cups a day,” she said.

Well, I didn’t like the taste so I made one cup a day. Yesterday I owned up to it and had three cups. I’m on my third today, and I got smart. I made a pot in the morning and am drinking it iced during the day. It’s good iced. No sweat.

I agreed to do it every day, two or three cups, for a month. We’ll see what results I get.

I have spoken of the gatekeeper before. I imagine him standing at the base of our brains throwing out the good stuff we are attempting to throw in.

I don’t know why.

Sometimes I call him a brat.

Or, he’s doing his job, and he has been living in fear for so long it's built into him.

He’s like an old curmudgeon, “That won’t work. Don’t do that.”

Every day we hear of something to fear. It has been wars—I know about that. It has been diseases—I remember when our mothers wouldn’t let us go to the public swimming pool during August—Polio season.

We fear that the government is taking away our freedoms, we fear that we will have a car wreck, a plane crash, or that some predator will get our children. We fear walking down dark alleys, and we fear we won’t get the love we so desire.

It’s a tough game out there, and then some idiot—like me—comes along and asks why aren’t we happy.

I have a friend who says she is happy all the time—because she chooses to be.

She has frustrations. She is sad sometimes, but that doesn’t keep her from her appointment with happy.

Some say that happiness is an unattainable goal and that it’s foolish to expect to be happy all the time. Certainly, I wouldn’t use the word happy when disaster strikes, or when we lose a loved one.

So, I’m preferring to call it Grace.

Grace is given freely. You can imagine what grace is—it’s a calmness in the storm. It’s a belief that you are here for a reason, and that life is a gift. It is something that happens when you drop the fight.

It’s like the muse who comes and sits on our shoulder once we commit to doing the work our souls call us to do. 

As Pressfield says, our work isn’t always good, but we’re doing it.

I am struck by the fact that I am the only person looking through my eyes. I am the only person feeling the breeze against my skin. If I were my sister, I wouldn’t feel it—she would. And when I’m gone, there will be one less person to appreciate the beauty and joys we have.

Take pleasure in your life!

I love you,

Joyce

Some happy pictures I snapped around this place.

Blowing bubbles

 Mangos, no reason, just pretty. I bought two.

 

Pink dogwood trees are abundant where we live. I love them.

 

 

The Universe is Holding Its Breath

Don’t you feel that there is a great big wonderful world just out of reach?

Don’t you feel sometimes, that there is something you ought to be doing, but you’re not doing it?

Maybe it’s just me.

When I heard Jean Huston say “The universe is holding it’s breath,” I went “BING!”

It’s waiting for us.

To do what?

People talk of waking up. Whatever that means. 

People talk of “Being all you can be,” when you’re working as hard as you can toward that end already. We see potential but don’t know how to implement it.

People say to “Be yourself,” but we’re not too happy with who we are, and don’t know how to access that self we’re supposed to be.

We’ve heard of “The Law of Attraction, and we beat ourselves up because we’re not attracting the good stuff we’ve put on our want list.

Yes, I know, we negate the very thing we want with our thoughts of lack and unworthiness, that is confusing too, and contributes to our belief that we’re not doing it good enough. 

You know, it’s like someone saying, “What did you do to create this?” when you’re coughing, sneezing and your head feels about to burst.

Certainly, I didn’t create you telling me this. If I had that power to create, you wouldn’t be in my presence.

Perhaps it’s my time in life where I become a curmudgeon, knowing that life is short, and that if we’re going to do whatever we have put on our docket, we better get with it.

Time is speeding past us faster than a freight train.

We know that we are physical, mental, and spiritual. We know that our biology jumps into the mix by pumping chemicals into our systems. These chemicals can irritate our stomachs, and scramble our brains. We have psychological baggage from childhood that interferes with our functioning as a whole human being—whatever that is, and we behave like 10-year-olds half the time and pubescent teenagers 49% of the time.

That leaves us with 1%.

Well, one percent of a fantastic brain is something to work with.

And about that childhood baggage, I love what Jack Campbell said, “Everybody had a hard childhood. Get over it.”

The universe is holding its breath.

The universe, the universal conscious, spirit, that energy that some call God, knows who we are, and it’s waiting for us to know it too.

Jean Huston has a handle on this quantum consciousness thing. As I see it, it’s not about sitting and wishing, hoping, efforting, working for our heart’s desire, it is being immersed in it. 

We have learned a lot over the years, from The Secret, to Manifesting, to the use of affirmations, to being thankful for what we have, to honoring the great spirit that dwells within us, and then we wonder why it’s not working to our satisfaction.

Here’s an example as told by Jean Huston:  Margaret Mead lived with her for a time. Remember Margaret Mead?  She was a famed anthropologist who lived between 1901 and 1978.

She was walking with Jean one day and railing about a not having a piece of information she needed for a talk she would be giving the next day. He needed it. but she couldn’t find it, and she was spitting nails.

On the walk they met one of Mead’s former students.

 “You probably don’t remember me, “the student said.

“Oh, I remember you,” Mead said, “you were in my second class, and you didn’t complete your term paper.”

The student told her that she went on the graduate school, in spite of her failure to complete the paper, and her thesis was the very same material Margaret Mead needed for the following day.

Mead grabbed the student and said, “You’re coming home with me.”

Jean asked Mead how she got to be so lucky.

Answered Mead: “Because I expect to be.”

That is being in the Quantum Field.

Mead co-created with the Universe.

She didn’t control her feelings about being mad and frustrated—something we think we should never be.

She had a safety net.

It was her belief that all would work out well.

Behind the frustration, the venting and the anger she believed that the universe conspired to do her good.

That’s what I mean by being in the quantum field.

I don’t know what Jean Huston says it is.

She just sparked an idea in me.