If A), Then I'll B) Happy

"Once this final thing is in order, then life will be perfect."  Have you ever noticed this thought?  I'm pretty sure we all have it.  It's there (sometimes deep down or in the background), but we have it and believe it.  In fact, we believe so much we usually can't even see it.  We're like fish in water.

But if you are able to just glance at this thought you can see that it's based on the premise that things aren't quite good enough yet.  At that you may say: "Of course we're happy!  But we can always be happier, right?"  And that's the trick.  This almost hidden belief that it's not good enough now because of that missing piece.  How long should we wait?

Then, mercifully we finally get A).  There is some happiness as that feeling of not-quite-right goes away.  However, suddenly we realize as good as A) is, it really won't do without A.1).  So we wait to be happy until we get that next piece.  And somehow we don't realize that we're never really happy.  We put it off until we get the combination of circumstances we like which never seems to come.   We just keep on waiting.

So what's a person to do?  If I can't be happy because I'm always wanting something else, then how can I be happy?  The answer is right there in the question.  We don't need to base our happiness on circumstances and conditions.  We can learn (and it might take some practice) to be happy with whatever is going on right here and now.  Even if we don't like it.  It can be hard.  It seems counter-intuitive.  But when we practice contentment with whatever is present a more spacious and freeing sense of happiness can be found.

If you can be happy no matter if the world is giving you lemons or lemonade, then what's stopping you from always being happy?  It's a happiness not based on conditions.

Story Time: The Lost Horse

塞翁失馬

A long, long time ago, there was a kind old man who lived on the plains outside the Great Wall of China. The gentle old man had only two passions in his life: collecting rare breeds of horses, and his son, whom he loved more than anything else.

The old man and his son would ride their horses every day. They would travel great distances to trade horses, meet new people, and enjoy the good fortune that life had bestowed upon them.

One morning, a servant left the stable door open and one of the old man’s favorite stallions escaped. When the neighbors heard the news of the stallion’s escape, they came to comfort the old man. They told him they were sorry he had had such bad luck.

But strangely enough, the gentle old man was not upset. He explained to his neighbors that losing the horse wasn’t necessarily bad luck. There was no way to predict that the horse would escape, it just happened, and now there was nothing that could be done about it. “There is no reason to be upset,” said the old man. The neighbors soon realized that there was nothing they could do to help get the horse back, and that they shouldn’t feel sad for the old man’s misfortune.

One week later, the stallion came back, and he brought with him a mare. This was not just any mare, but a rare and valuable white mare. When the neighbors heard of the old man’s good luck, they quickly came to congratulate him. But again, the old man was not excited. As he had explained before, it was not necessarily good luck that had brought him this new and beautiful white horse. It just happened, and there was no reason to get excited over it. Still a bit puzzled, the neighbors left as quickly as they had come.

A short time later, while his son was riding the white horse, she slipped and fell. She landed on the son’s leg, and broke his leg, so that he would always walk with a limp. Again, the neighbors came to the old man’s house to give their sympathy for the bad luck that had befallen his son. One of the neighbors suggested that the old man sell the mare before anymore bad luck could happen, and others said that he should take his revenge and kill the mare. However, the old man did neither. He explained to the neighbors that they should not feel sorrow for his son, nor anger towards the mare. It was purely an accident that could not be predicted, and there was nothing he or they could do to change it. At this point, the neighbors thought the old man was crazy and decided to leave him alone.

Two years later an enemy invaded the country, and all of the old man’s neighbors were drafted to defend the country against the attack. Because the old man’s son was lame, he did not have to join in the fighting. The war was very bad, and most of the old man’s neighbors were killed, but his son was spared because he had been hurt by the white horse two years earlier.

This version of the story was taken from this website.

Story Time: Taste The Same

Some children saw Nasreddin coming from the vineyard with two baskets full of grapes loaded on his donkey.

They gathered around him and asked him to give them a taste.

Nasreddin picked up a bunch of grapes and gave each child a grape.

"You have so much, but you gave us so little," the children whined.

"There is no difference whether you have a basketful or a small piece. They all taste the same," Nasreddin answered, and continued on his way.