Who Can Make Us Happy?

It is the goal and the wish of every human being, I believe, to seek happiness. Who wants to be miserable unless they have a mental problem?

A happy person, it means to me, is a person that is fully integrated,  internally and externally. Internally means that what they want, what they perceive should be, and what is happening, is one and the same.  External integration means that one feels one with the subject observed or listened to. One loses itself in the part observed, whether it is nature, piece of art or music.  There are no boundaries. One loses sense of time and space.

Happiness is related to love. When we are in love, we are happy, and we are happy because we are fully integrated, internally, and externally. We are in love.

Happiness and love is not something somebody can give us. We cannot buy it. That’s why it is useless accusing someone or something for not making us happy. Chariji, Master of the Heartfulness meditation movement, says that love is a muscle. Exercise it  and it grows and becomes stronger. Notice that the muscle he is referring to is your own muscle. Nobody can develop your muscle, only you can develop it which means you have to be responsible for whether you feel love or happiness.

I sometimes feel responsible to make happy unhappy people that I love. I do the best I can, but it doesn’t work. They always find a way to interpret my help, my care, in a way that succeeds to continue their unhappiness. There is a Chinese, I think, saying that says this well: ” Why are you angry with me when I am trying to help you?“ These unhappy people, no matter how many reasons they have to be happy, find some reason to be unhappy.  On the other hand, I have a friend, 93 years old, whom  I have known for over fifty years. He is always in a positive mood. Even when he went bankrupt during the real estate crisis and lost hundred and ten million dollars. It did not make him depressed. He kept his positive outlook on life and kept smiling. Real smiling, not make belief smiling. Not strange he is ninety-three years old. His positive outlook on life, at all cost, does not allow his body to lose energy. That keeps him alive and healthy longer.  

I cannot make someone else happy but I can make them unhappy. That I can do. So, our responsibility is not to make people we care for happy. Our responsibility is to make sure we do not make them UNhappy.

So why bring flowers to our spouse? Or do what we believe they love? Do it, but do not expect to make them happy.     We should do it because it makes US happy. It makes us happy to bring flowers to show we care. It makes us happy to do something for others.  Whether they are happy or not is their choice. Thus, do whatever you can for others but with no expectation that it will make them happy. Or show gratitude. Do it nevertheless because it is who you are. Just a loving person.

Just thinking,

And wishing us all, a new year and beyond

A year of peace in the world and let love dominate.