What Does it Actually Take to Be Happy May 1, 2023

     Being happy is a matter of knowing how to enjoy what's readily available as low hanging fruit without getting hung up by other things that aren't available that you think you absolutely have to have to be happy.

    Being happy is a matter of knowing and resting confidently in the belief that pretty good is pretty good and if it isn't pretty good yet, well get 'em next time.

    Being happy is a matter of being able to tolerate honest flaws, in yourself and others, including aging, asymmetries, injustices, and things that remind you of things that were unbearable as a child because you know that even though you couldn't stand it, then you can put it in perspective that you don't mind as much now.

    Being happy is a matter of being comfortable standing alone without without outside support or confirmation, and being confident anyway.

    Being happy is a matter of not believing the story that you are accursed by history and habit and destiny, or that you need to be vigilant and determined at all times to make up for an inner flaw, a self-blame, or a sense of shame that you've built up out of myth, reflex and early youthful panic that never stopped to look past what happened years ago.

    Being happy is a matter of finding a place to rest inside your bones and skin almost anytime you feel like it or need to.

    Being happy is knowing at any moment how to experience the incredible gratitude you feel to be able to love what you love in phenomena or emotion, sensation or surprises.

    Being happy is being able to savor and enjoy with no nagging worries, qualifications, or painful judgements occluding the pleasure possible.

    Being happy is believing that the universe loves you like record producer Daniel Lanois says the microphone loves Bono, the singer in the band U2.

    Being happy is having one point of view sometimes and not switching it conditionally. To be as nice to your date as to the waiter, as nice to the person in traffic who is paused reading their phone at the light as yourself when you're running late, as habitually kind to the person who can do nothing for you as the one who can, and kind to yourself, as a rule.

    Being happy is knowing what your main purpose is and following it. What is that?

    I am here to train my mind to be guided by my emotional feeling rather than by my thoughts and fears.

    I am here to help people who come into my life or whose lives come to my attention in order that I might help them.

    I am here to use yoga to train and strengthen myself to face challenges with equanimity.

    I am here to use hyperventilation, followed by breath retention, yoga nidra and cold showers, first thing in the morning in order to manually override my autonomic nervous system.

    These are process goals. They may or may not make more sense than make $X in income per ____ by such and such a date, or start a family, or earn a degree. I think I want to have interesting problems I enjoy solving. I want to feel my heart in the high efficiency zone for x number of minutes. 

    Mainly I want to achieve order and calm and a sense of power, independent of circumstances and conditions. That is easier to do than making anything happen or making anyone give you something. And I think you can do this if you aren't particular how you get there, but you keep that end in sight directed by the guidance of what feels right to you.