However, if you don't have a solution for everything that life throws at you each day- you probably cannot maintain happiness in any kind of long term or consistent way.
Imagine being given a unique wish. You get to choose. You are guaranteed one of the following things but not any of the others. Would you want to be beautiful, famous, rich, or happy?
I am one of those people who picked happy.
I can't tell you how to become beautiful. I don't know a damn thing about being famous and I don't ever want to know. I don't want to be rich because all of that money comes with great responsibility and angst over losing it. I know a little something about that. But happy. Now that's interesting. I know a little bit about happy because I knew his evil twin- unhappy.
In 2007, I was the most unhappy and depressed person on the planet. I was spiritually sick. My life got so bad that ultimately, I was given the gift of desperation. I was suicidal, too cowardly to pull the trigger.
I want to tell you how significant the gift of desperation is. Without that utter despair and loneliness- loneliness like no other loneliness I have ever known- I could not have gotten better. In fact, I would have been stuck in that ethereal plane between unconsciousness and consciousness forever. I believe that is where the vast majority of all humanity dwells. In a state of unconsciousness. Some are given the gift of desperation and many actually kill themselves believing that life is just some vicious or cruel hoax. Others just walk about rare earth, angry and depressed, living quiet lives of desperation. Did they get shorted in the emotional equipment line? What happened to them and why didn't that happen to me?
Why was I given the road map to happiness and just who can I give that to? The brightest minds in the world couldn't fix me. Those bright minds hand out prescriptions for psychotropic medications and boot people out of the office week after week. They make gobs of money but don't effect one significant change. They know they aren't really helping anybody- because they don't even know what ails them. The unconscious cannot treat the unconscious. They don't teach spirituality and the solution in college. They don't know what it is. So how was it that an untrained, unskilled, dumb ass like me figured out one of life's greatest mysteries? How did I find happiness every day and how do I manage to keep it everyday?
And how do I describe this without coming off like some lunatic, smug guy?
I started with one question. Can I unconditionally love anyone or everyone that I choose? And if I choose to do this- and stick to that task- can I change who and what I am? Can I change all of the antiquated belief systems that were installed by my teachers and can I install entirely different and useful belief systems?
Of course I could. I knew what didn't work. That was everything I had been doing up until 2007. I simply had to do the opposite of what I had been doing. Mostly. I did manage to get a few things right.
What if I told you that I once heard a gal state that if you have nothing useful to do, nobody to love, and nothing to look forward to- chances are you will be depressed. What if I told you that not only do I believe that statement to be generally true as defined in 2008- but that now I can have all three of those things at once and they do not affect my happiness. I have found the solution for x. I don't have to be doing anything "useful" (as defined in old beliefs) to be happy. I don't have to be in love to love everyone and I find something to look forward to every day. It can be any number of things- simple acts, in and of themselves- acts that the unconscious don't even recognize. Today, I was happy to mow the lawn, take out the trash, wash my motorcycle. To write this piece. I relish every moment. I feel absolutely no guilt (old beliefs again) if I do nothing all day but watch football. Guilt is no longer a part of my chemistry. I have eliminated it. I have exorcised that negative emotion along with a number of other demons.
I suppose some people have found the solutions for beauty, wealth, and fame. I haven't. But I did find the solution for happiness and I know what it is. If you are not consistently happy nearly all of the time and I mean 99% of the time, you do not have the solution. You may be wandering in that ethereal plane between desperation and ok. You may spend your lifetime there and never receive the gift of desperation.
What happened to me was divine intervention. It had to be. Of myself, I am just a knucklehead- completely incapable of finding a solution like this. I know that. Millions of people, perhaps billions of people, have failed to find happiness. People a lot brighter than me. Maybe one day- I can find one person to give this to. That would be nice.
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