Chapter 6: Pursuit of Happiness

Chapter 6: Pursuit of Happiness

(a message from my father, the officiant at our wedding)

Happiness is not a mystery to be solved or a secret to be revealed. It may be a journey but it is a very ,very short journey because you don’t have to go anywhere but inside your own mind. In the short term you could call happiness your personal reward for successful internal negotiation. That’s correct- you negotiate happiness with yourself. Keep in mind this is short term happiness. It means if I meet these personal criteria I will be happy. If I get this new job, if I get this new car, if I lose this weight, blah, blah, blah. These are personal assumptions about achieving happiness and are often wrong. Hence we have disillusioned career choices, broken hearted relationships and mid-life crisis. Many of these assumptions are perceptions of others regarding what SHOULD make us happy but they have little relevance to what actually DOES make us happy. 

In many cases what has happened is that your mind’s criteria for happiness has been shaped by others and/or marketing agencies. This criteria is directly related to things you can NOT control. If you can’t control it why would you give up the right to happiness to someone or something else? This defies logic. It makes much more sense to keep control of your ability to be happy. 

This is much simpler than it sounds.  True happiness is a state of mind. You can think yourself into happiness just like you can think yourself into fear or anger or jealousy. The common thread here is YOU. If you are happy you have the ability to help someone else be happy. You can not MAKE someone happy. You can only help them FEEL happy. You can only do this in the long term by loving yourself in the truest sense. How do you do this? 

Be passionate about your life and your relationship. Studies show that people who are happy are spending time doing things they  are passionate about. It is not important what they are doing or what they achieve. It is only important that they love what they are doing. They are happy.  

I have seen in you two the ability to be passionate about life, about love and you should be just as passionate about the pursuit of happiness. That pursuit is sheathed in your love for each other. Don’t ever forget how to express your love. Don’t get caught up in judgments ,opinions and reasoning to the point that you forget to be passionate about life together. The power to be happy is within each of you and it is under your control. Share that power with each other and be forever happy.