February 26, 2025 WHERE DID HAPPINESS G0? Part 1
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
- John Wooden.
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Listen to this meditation on audio:
Part of our unhappiness could be caused by unfulfilled expectations. Perhaps we attempted something in our career that fell through, or maybe it was a relationship we held high hopes for that didn't work out, perhaps we sought a personal goal that we came up short on. First of all, let's be clear that disappointments are an integral and necessary part of living. Imagine with me for a moment, that every single thing we attempted was a success. Let's walk around that thought for a minute. Everything we attempted to do was a success. Personally, I cannot think of a more boring existence than one in which everything we attempt to do succeeds. The anticipation of victory with its accompanying anxiety, would be gone. No chance to fail would really be the end of our chance to achieve happiness. So, can we agree that the mere existence of the chance to fail contributes to the possibility of happiness? Now, if we start with the premise that the possibility of failure is the link that creates the possibility of happiness once we achieve a victory, we might gain a new appreciation for our efforts at achievement. We might even begin to analyze why we did not achieve our goal and then try to come up with a better plan for our next attempt at achievement. What could we have done better? What could we have avoided doing so that our chances of success would improve? By analyzing why we did not succeed in the relationship, in the career, in whatever, we can get better and thus do better the next time the opportunity presents itself. This strategy is one that will lead to the happiness you desire if, you refuse to quit trying. While true happiness runs much deeper than achieving our goals, those achievements can contribute to our overall feeling of happiness, and thus lead to a state of joy, which is a more all encompassing state of happiness. Welcome the uncertainty of our desired outcomes. It is indeed the uncertainty that gives us the possibility of achieving happiness.
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