The Whisper of Okayness February 26, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Life & Living, Links, Positive Thinking.Tags: Charlie Brown, fulfillment, happiness, Peace
2 comments
Last night I read a very nice post called “Late Afternoon” over at the blog House of Apollo that got me thinking about a post I’ve been planning to write. Here’s a taste of his post:
People are coming home from work and families are reuniting. This is what you worked all day for: To come home, relax, slow down, and spend time with the people you love doing the things you enjoy. It really is quite worth it. I don’t kiss my wife as she gets home like in the movies, but she kisses me with her voice as she brightly says hello, as if totally happy to see me.
I take in this quiet moment because it makes me smile, it really makes me quite happy. Sometimes I wonder if one of the big secrets to happiness is just slowing down and breathing in deep.
Helios Apollo, House of Apollo
We chase stimulation and larger-than-life experiences. We play video games, talk nonstop on cell phones, watch movies with car chases and explosions, and listen to ipods. And when we talk of happiness, we and the self-help gurus discuss it in the same terms: Slam! Bam! Exciting! Breathtaking! The sensation of happiness, we say, is tantamount to the rush of skydiving. As a result, we run in circles in search of increasingly more intense experiences. Oh, we succeed — we have more and more extreme experiences — but we never seem to find happiness.
This is where Helios Apollo is on to something. Happiness isn’t about more and more intensity, but just the opposite. What we’re searching for, and what we find the wise and the peaceful, is a sense of okayness. We’re okay. Life is okay. In the future, we’ll be okay. True happiness, it turns out, is much closer to Charlie Brown’s “Happiness is a warm puppy” than living permanently in the emotional state of just having won the lottery.
To find that sort of okayness, though, we have to turn off the noise. We have to cut the internal and external chatter enough to see what’s both around us and within us. It’s not easy though. If we suddenly reduce the noise in our lives, we’ll experience the kind of rough shift of gears that leaves transmissions smoking on the side of the road. Better to reduce gradually, wean ourselves off the drug of constant stimulation like a reformed junkie,and give our spirits the chance to adjust.
Today, let’s reduce the noise in our lives, and let’s pay special attention to what’s left behind after we do. We may learn something.
Thanks, Helios Apollo, for reminding us.
Make a great day.
Photo: Medmoiselle T
Lessons from Hell (3): Bring Out That Which is Inside You. February 24, 2008
Posted by beholdthestars in Lessons from Hell, Life & Living, Motivation.Tags: depression, dreams, fulfillment, happiness
2 comments
If you bring out that which is inside you, that which is inside you will save you. If you do not bring out that which is inside you, that which is inside you will destroy you.
Jesus Christ, The Gospel of Thomas
Sometimes we’re drawn to particular quotations. We memorize them, write them down, and put them up on our refrigerator. These quotes articulate some conclusion or other we’ve already drawn from our experiences. For me, this is one of them. Religious aspects — like The Gospel of Thomas’ place in Christianity — aside, this quotation contains one piece of advice I’d gladly give my daughter.
We all know what we want. If we’re miserable, it’s because somewhere inside ourselves we’re comparing our reality with the internal model of who we wanted to be — and finding a mismatch. That mismatch causes us pain. How many times have we heard friends say wistfully, “I always wanted to get my degree,” or “I wanted to be a doctor/writer/entrepreneur/librarian/race car driver/whatever,” or “I always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail.”?
Oddly enough, it’s not necessarily the lack of achievement of these dreams that causes us the most pain, it’s the fact that for a thousand reasons of our own, we didn’t go after them. These dreams are part of our personal magic, and the degree to which these dreams match our core being is the degree to which they’ll save us if we go after them, and the degree to which they’ll destroy us if we don’t.
Experience brings wisdom, and often, I used to think, wisdom come too late. In the last couple of years, though, I’ve learned that wisdom is wisdom, and is a blessing any time. Once I knew where my magic was, but foolishly chose to follow the “safe” path of convention and did what others my age were doing. As I came to realize my blunder, it seemed impossible to leave the path I’d begun. My magic seemed lost forever, and I began the slow spiral into the Dark Period. I know now that it’s never too late, and that our magic is always there to save us. We just have to reach for it.
My wish for you today is that you have the courage to bring out that which is inside you. It can change your life.
Make a great day.
Behold the Stars 