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Are you happy yet?
http://www.blog4change.org/articles/1225/1/Are-you-happy-yet/Page1.html
By Alethia Hallador
Published on 12/16/2009
 
What is happiness? You are searching for happiness aren't you? Happiness seems to be problematic. It's not a thing that you can reach out and touch. You can't point your finger at an object and say "I see you happiness. Come here and stop hiding on me". So happiness isn't out there somewhere in space.

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What is happiness?  You are searching for happiness aren't you?  Happiness seems to be problematic.  It's not a thing that you can reach out and touch.  You can't point your finger at an object and say "I see you happiness.  Come here and stop hiding on me".  So happiness isn't out there somewhere in space. 

If you can't find it by searching for some non-existent 'happiness thingy', then there is always hope, isn't there?  Hope that, WITH TIME, you'll find happiness.  Happiness is just a future possibility, a hope.  You hope that your life will change in such a way that you will feel happy.  Once you get that promotion, the new car, a new boyfriend or girlfriend, you will be happy.  What you have right now is not enough for you to be happy.

How old are you?  Was there ever a time in your life that you felt you had enough to allow yourself to be happy?  Think of what you had 5 years ago?  Were you happy then?  What makes you think you will be happy 5 years from now?  In 5 years, you will be thinking of the next load of criteria that must be filled in order for you to be happy. 

You can't find happiness in space and happiness doesn't exist in time.  Then WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, WTF is happiness??

The WHO is who you really are.  The WHAT is what you really are.  The WHERE is here.  The WHEN is now.  The WHY is because you are alive.  The last 3, the where, when, and why are facts.  So, what are the variables in this equation?  Who and what you are.

The reason happiness is different for everyone is that each person is unique.  What is happiness for me could be boredom for you.

Think back to a time that you felt happy.  Was it because you felt that you were truly who you are, even for a moment?  The moment allowed you to be who you are.  Happiness is who and what you are, in the here and now, because you are alive. 

You won't find in it in some future fantasy that you hope comes to be.  Nor will you find in in collecting the objects that you see flashed in front of you on TV commercials and magazine advertisements.  Look at celebrities.  They 'have it all' but do they seem happy?  They are not themselves.  They spend their whole lives pretending to be someone else and end up miserable.  They have it all, and are still unhappy, therefore they have no hope for happiness.  There is nothing else to get!!  At least when you don't have it all, you cling to the hope that someday you will be happy when you have this and do that.  This is false.

The only way to BE happy, is to BE yourself.  This is not the same as being your personality.  Your personality is your accumulated defense mechanism against the outer world.  You are unhappy because your false personality runs your life.  Your personality is all of the 'should's, must's, have to's' that your learned growing up.  It is not you.  You are who and what is there when the false is gone.

Ask yourself, "is this really me"?  "Is this really what I want"?  Is it what you want?  Or what you think you should want?  Or what TV tells you to want?  Or what your dad told you to want? 

Start to throw away the layers of garbage you are dragging around with you.  You will start to discover the lightness and happiness that is you.