I don’t hold much with New Year’s resolutions. It’s good to be resolved about something, but those promises made to oneself at the beginning of each year always seem to last for about a month - six weeks if you’re lucky - and then gradually fade away. So I haven’t made any, and don’t plan to make any New Year’s resolutions.
The only thing I’m determined to do this year is stop preventing my own happiness. This past year it seemed that any time things would start to get better, and I would finally ‘be happy again’, things would go wrong again. But I think I’ve figured out that the only way I’m ever really gonna be happy if is I decide to be. My happiness depends on me, and no one and nothing else.
Yeah, yeah I know. It’s really quite obvious isn’t it? But it’s one thing to ‘know’ something and another to ‘believe’ it. So I will be working on understanding this principle in my heart - that I am truly in control of my happiness - and get busy being happy.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? The only problem is that I have become quite cynical these days and I’m going to have to work at it.
Oh, Paul and I have other plans in the works; rebuilding our savings, creating a business, moving someplace nicer, etc. But I think my most important work right now is being happy. If I can do that, then everything else will be a bit easier.
Damn right.
Go get em honey.
An excerpt from my favorite book addresses happiness:
Most people believe if they “have” a thing (more time, money, love–whatever), then they can finally “do” a thing (write a book, take up a hobby, go on vacation, buy a home, undertake a relationship), which will allow them to “be” a thing (happy, peaceful, content, or in love). In actuality, they are reversing the Be-Do-Have paradigm. In the universe as it really is (as opposed to how you think it is), “havingness” does not produce “beingness,” but the other way around.
First you “be” the thing called “happy” (or “knowing,” or “wise,” or “compassionate,” or whatever), then you start “doing” things from this place of beingness–and soon you discover that what you are doing winds up bringing you the things you’ve always wanted to “have.”
The way to set this creative process (and that’s what this is . . . the process of creation) into motion is to look at what it is you want to “have,” ask yourself what you think you would “be” if you “had” that, then go right straight to being.
In this way you reverse the way you’ve been using the Be-Do-Have paradigm–in actuality, set it right–and work with, rather than against, the creative power of the universe.
Here is a short way of stating this principle:
In life, you do not have to do anything.
It is all a question of what you are being.
For now, and to illustrate this, think of a person who just knows that if he could only have a little more time, a little more money, or a little more love, he’d be truly happy. He does not get the connection between his “not being very happy” right now and his not having the time, money, or love he wants. On the other hand, the person who is “being” happy seems to have time to do everything that’s really important, all the money that’s needed, and enough love to last a lifetime. He finds he has everything he needs to “be happy” . . . by “being happy” to begin with! Deciding ahead of time what you choose to be produces that in your experience.
Happiness is a state of mind. And like all states of mind, it reproduces itself in physical form.
Therefore, whatever you choose for yourself, give to another.
If you choose to be happy, cause another to be happy.
If you choose to be prosperous, cause another to prosper.
If you choose more love in your life, cause another to have more love in theirs.
Do this sincerely–not because you seek personal gain, but because you really want the other person to have that–and all the things you give away will come to you.
The very act of your giving something away causes you to experience that you have it to give away. Since you cannot give to another something you do not now have, your mind comes to a new conclusion about you–namely, that you must have this, or you could not be giving it away. This new thought then becomes your experience. You start “being” that. And once you start “being” a thing, you’ve engaged the gears of the most powerful creation machine in the universe–your Divine Self.
Whatever you are being, you are creating.
The circle is complete, and you will create more and more of that in your life. It will be made manifest in your physical experience.
This is the greatest secret of life.