The Power to Act

The clock next to me read 3:23 am when I awoke this morning with a strong urgency to write.  I had recently heard a speaker say that she was blogging about happiness because there are so many people who claim that they are unhappy.  What is happiness anyway? How do I cultivate it?  Am I happy?  These questions were percolating deep within me at that very moment, and I had to find an answer.

What is happiness?  Webster defines it as: characterized by luck or good fortune; prosperous or having or demonstrating pleasure or satisfaction; gratified.  No wonder there are so many people who are unhappy—the definition itself is dissatisfying.  What does luck or good fortune have to do with happiness?  Luck, good fortune, and/or prosperity have to do with things that happen to you; not who you are!  I know people who experienced all of those states and I truly don’t think they are any more disposed to happiness than people who have lived through tough times and/or weathered financial hardship.

Of all of Webster’s words, the words that resonate most are gratification and/or demonstrating pleasure.  Happiness is a state of being; it is a verb and, as such expresses existence, action, or occurrence.  It is something that can only happen in the moment.  It can arise from something external, like a new purchase or an accomplishment; but that type of happiness recedes as fast as it comes.  The happiness that I am seeking is a state of mind; a way of being in the world that is not hooked into external situations, but resides quietly at my core.

Why are people unhappy?  I know that there are many reasons why people may be unhappy; I’m not saying that there is only one way.  A major reason for me is that I’ve been too busy to ‘stop and smell the roses’.  Instead I’ve focused my energies externally on all the people and things that seem to demand my attention.  The result—I’m left depleted of my inner resources.  When my tank is nearing empty, it’s hard to find happiness!

How do I cultivate happiness?  The happiness that I’m talking about is a state of being.  I cultivate it by creating the practice of gratitude or thankfulness which is the action of demonstrating pleasure.  When I take time to think about the things I am grateful for, something happens deep within me.  There is a shift from the heaviness of ambivalence to lightness of being—that is what I call happiness.  When practicing gratitude my focus of attention creates a bridge between what is exterior to me, to what is going on in me—in my heart of hearts.   My focus of attention shifts from what I need to do, to things that I otherwise take for granted or what is right in my world, right now. It is a practice that connects the head to the warmth of my heart.

Am I happy?  While writing this I became aware that I have been practicing gratitude on and off for the past few years.  Three years ago, without thinking,  I changed my telephone message to “Have a grateful day.”  Last month my Qi-Gong master suggested that we take on the practice for a week of continually being grateful for whatever is in front of us; the car, the wheel of the car, the seat I’m sitting in, the road I’m driving on, the person who cuts me off, etc.  Well you get the idea.  And, the dutiful student that I am, I took on the practice and I’ve felt the transformative effect it has on my soul. Gratitude does work!

I’d like to say that I continue the ‘gratitude exercise’ through the day, but I don’t.  What I do, however, is to begin my day, while still cocooned in blankets, being grateful for the comfortable bed I sleep in, for the man who shares my life, for my family, work, and my clients.  For the blessing of being able to walk, dance and do Tae Kwon Do; for a body that supports me and the breath that sustains me, and for the blessing of life itself.  And in that practice there is a shift from the worries I might wake up with to  a place of lightness and— I start my day happy.  I mean in the moments of gratitude, I’m downright happy with all I have, and all I do, and all the many things that work  in my life.  In those moments I’m very, very happy – dare I say, I’m giddy!

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