Royane Real
The Perfect Time for Happiness
By Royane Real
Happiness has always been a goal of human beings, probably since humans first appeared on the planet. In the United States, the right to pursue happiness is written right into the constitution. Still, not even the constitution can force people to be happy.
What is happiness?
For many people, happiness is a fleeting thing. For others, achieving happiness is a frustrating goal they don’t know how to reach. Many people experience happiness as a memory of a time that has passed, or they view happiness as a vision of something which is yet to come, something they will achieve once a series of events come to pass. Very few people know how to find happiness in the present moment.
Yet the truth is, if we only think of happiness as something we remember, or something we hope to have in the future, we are making it impossible for ourselves to be happy right now.
Why not? What is keeping us from finding happiness?
One reason we drive happiness away is because many of us impose some pretty tough conditions on ourselves before we decide we can be allowed to be happy.
First, we say to ourselves that we have to wait until everything in our lives is perfect. Perhaps we need to have the perfect job. Then we also have to have the perfect possessions. We have to have a perfect marriage with a perfect mate. We need to have perfect children. Our husband has to stop drinking. We need to lose twenty pounds.
If everything on our list of needs isn’t met, we decide we are not allowed to be happy.
Our happiness becomes a reward that has to be put off for another day, far off into the distant future. If our list of demands grows longer, then happiness gets postponed even further. In the meantime, we tell ourselves that we are stuck in the imperfect present. How can we possibly be happy when things around us are less than perfect?
We become very fixated on looking for reasons to prove we can’t be happy right now. We don’t look for reasons to prove we can be happy.
This idea that we can’t be happy because everything isn’t perfect, seems like it must be the right explanation. It seems like it makes sense.
Yet, it is not really true.
Happiness isn’t something that depends on some future moment. Happiness doesn’t depend on achieving some imagined perfection.
Happiness can only be found in your response to the present moment, a moment that is fleeting. A moment when you can choose to focus on all the perfection you can appreciate right now.
As long as you believe you have to wait for some future perfection, you’ll miss all the happiness that might be available to you right now.
You can train yourself to stay focused on everything that is wrong in your life and in the world, or you can start to look for reasons to be joyful. You can actually give yourself permission to be happy now, whether or not things are perfect.
This article was written by Royane Real, author of “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends"
Download it at http://www.lulu.com/real Author of “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends"
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