Happiness & Acceptance

A friend on Facebook posted that they were empty inside and that they wished they were happy like they used to be and this got me thinking, "What is 'Happiness' and what is it that makes us feel 'Happy'?"

Happiness is not something you can force, it is something that is brought upon by a release of dopamine into the body from things or moments that make us happy.  Those things or moments bring forth little episodes of Happiness that pass all too soon, but it is a string of those same moments or things that keep the feeling going and start to bring forth the belief of a general Happiness.  This is the times of our lives that in the future we reflect back upon to say we were Happy, when we are down in the dumps and we wish we were back at that moment of time so we could be Happy once more.

Happiness is more than things or moments, it is also acceptance.  It is accepting the fact that there are some things we cannot change, no matter how powerful or in control we think we are.  Is accepting that our last relationship didn't work out because of their unfaithfulness, no matter how Happy they made us feel.  It is their infidelity that cannot be changed and must be accepted as such.  Once you accept that certain things cannot be changed or only changed slowly through time, can you find Happiness.  It is the acceptance of being in debt, of having a cheating mate, of the passing of friends or family or many other things, that you must come to terms with first, before you can find true Happiness.  Without that acceptance, you will constantly crash against the hopelessness of those things, lamenting on how the world is unfair and you can never be Happy.  You will just be focusing on the negative in a downward spiral of unhappiness that will lead to things that lead to short term Happiness, i.e. drugs, alcohol, adrenaline rushes, emotionless sex.  These are short term fixes that just leave you wanting more and looking for your next fix, that never truly solves the problem of not accepting the underlying causes of the unhappiness.

Just remember:  "Don't worry -- be Happy."  -Meher Baba