The Pursuit of Happiness
By Robin McCutcheon
To my dear Friends in the Quite Frankly Nation: The start of a new year is a good time for new beginnings. Let’s start with being happy.
Being happy is our natural state of Be-ing, when upset, or anger, or any other negative emotion is absent. We know that happiness exists when we see children playing at the playground. Often, though, as we grow older, we find that happiness eludes us – we may even recognize that there’s too much ‘other stuff’ that gets in the way of our being happy. How does one “be happy” when there’s all that ‘other stuff’ that gets in the way?
Pursue Happiness until you have caught it. Pursuing Happiness can start with doing what makes you happy…and not doing what you feel obligated to do. I know that we are sometimes forced to do things that we don’t really want to do – and in those situations, you’ll need to look for the parts that you get satisfaction (which is a Cousin of Happiness) from doing well. The more you do those things that make you happy, the closer you’ll get to being happy.
Of course, your intentions behind your actions will be very important too. For if you intentionally do an action that harms anyone (especially if it has the potential to harm your own self) then disaster will (notice I said will) occur, and that will NOT make you happy. So, doing what makes you happy means that you intend for that action to please your own self…which results in everyone else being happy too. (I know, sounds backwards, but that’s how it works.)
Pursuing Happiness means that you do not do anything because it will make you more money…that would be the pursuit of money, which nearly always ends up in ‘not happy.’ (You may try this one for a while to confirm what I’ve said is true, or you can take the easy route; just trust that what I’ve said is true and move past this lesson very quickly.)
Every time you do what makes you happy, or you find yourself being happy, you create around you an energy of Happiness – a positive energy, which ripples out to affect and impact everyone and everything around you. The energy of Happiness will affect and influence other events to “turn out just right”. When you are happy, the ‘right’ friends will find you. These will be people that will help you along the path to more happiness, and it should not surprise you, to your own heart’s desires. (In other words, your heart’s desires are the result of pursuing happiness.)
You will always know when you are truly happy because you can notice the absence of unhappy, complacent, or (more typically) not quite happy feelings coursing through your body. You can use your own body to tell you when you are happy. When you are happy your body will tingle; there’s a vibration to happiness that your body recognizes because being happy is your body’s natural state of being. When you are unhappy you are ‘out of tune’ with Universe; doing something that doesn’t make you happy, or thinking some unhappy thought, can cause your body to hurt, because it’s dis-harmonized with Universe. Being ‘out of tune’ with Universe can draw unfortunate accidents your way; you may cut yourself, or drop something on your toe or hand, etc. These things happen not as a punishment, but rather as Universe’s signal to you that it’s time to alter your attitude and stance and reclaim your happiness.
When I first started on the Path to Happiness, I often used my own body as an alarm system to tell me when I was not thinking happy thoughts, or not doing something that made me happy. When I noticed that my body was hurting, I had to think back a few seconds, or minutes, in time to see my train of thought, or look carefully at what I was doing to see where the culprit was, correct my thought pattern, or change what I was doing…and then as soon as I had made the changes and I could feel happiness flowing through my body again, the pain went away.
Happiness is part of the Love Energy that fills every piece of our Being, from the ‘empty space between our DNA’ to the outer “shell of energy” that is our entire energy system. And when you are happy, you have the power to be completely, totally at peace, even when the world around you is falling apart.
Finally, know that we are all connected. I know it looks like we are all separate, since we are not actually, physically attached…but we are energetically connected to each other. So, when you are happy, that positive energy ripples out to all the rest of us, helping each of us to become happier, too.
As I said to my son, lo these many years ago: You don’t be happy in order to get things, rather, the result of being happy sets you into that situation where things come to you, without you having to search for it yourself.
Said another way: don’t get the order of causation wrong, or you won’t have the results that you want. You be happy to be happy...because being happy results in frosting being added to your cake (all good things being added unto you); don’t you go searching for the frosting, you work on the cake, and let the Universe put the frosting on.
Written by Robin S. McCutcheon
December 17, 2024
Robin S. McCutcheon,
Professor of Economics
Lewis College of Business at Marshall University
Website: lync-sync.com