Facts, Truth, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Part 2)
(Mike DePung — Post II.21)
What is happiness for you? Do you know? There are no right or wrong answers here. In fact I imagine the responses would come tumbling forth.
What if I asked you what Happiness is for you? Any difference? I think probably so, even though there are still no right or wrong answers. Happiness. Capitalized. How is it different from happiness, lower case?
I would reference the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Notice the capitalized words in this sentence: Life, Liberty, Happiness. This seems to put them on an equal status, doesn’t it? How important is Life? Liberty? Now, I will ask again if Happiness is different from happiness.
On any given day, if someone asked me what my happiness looked like, I might tell them I would be very happy with a chocolate chip mint malt. Now, if I went into an ice cream parlor and walked out with my malt and dropped it, I would have lost it, lost my happiness. But that’s not quite the same as not being free to pursue my Happiness or losing that Happiness, is it?
Think about it. If Life and Liberty are our “unalienable rights,” is it the same if those are taken from us as it would be if a malted milk was? So, I ask again, what is your Happiness? Have you created it for yourself? Do you even know who the real You (capitalized) is?
I hope you do. We each have eternal Spirit in us; our core Self is divinity, our Heart. We have power to create. Because we have Ego, too, we need to work through that, shed, and dissolve Ego. That is part of the pursuit of Happiness. Notice, again, though, that pursuit is not capitalized. Happiness isn’t some carrot being dangled out in front of us, and the pursuit isn’t the end. Happiness is a real end, something we can create, acquire, and live. Without it, our lives will be the poorer in terms of significance and fulfillment and joy and love.
When we decide, declare, and create Happiness, whatever that looks like for each of us, living that and experiencing that daily becomes our personal truth. We create our own rationale and courses of action for living that. Those become our principles of life, our truth, the truth of how we use those factual things around us to weave into creating our reality, our Happiness.
This is why so many self-help philosophers and great people and brilliant thinkers speak of the requirement of a burning desire to drive us to succeed, whatever might be your definition of success. I would caution here that burning desire does not, for me, mean anything about an urgency or necessity, but then again, that’s part of my personal truth. We can’t, though, be focused and occupied with some vague, shimmering phantom of Happiness. We need to name it, create it, know it, bring it into existence and reality by living the truths to get to those ends every single day.
Heart-purpose, Heart-truth becomes our Happiness. What is it that You would deeply desire to do that would fill You with joy every single day — well, at least give you the experiences of satisfaction and significance, that would allow you to love Yourself and, by extension, others? For me, this means, too, that my everyday life should be enjoyable, and my Purpose, my Happiness, so natural, that it’s just plain old fun.
All of this boils down to answering those two questions of awakening: Who am I, and What do I choose as my Purpose? Having Life and Liberty to pursue answering these questions and creating our Happiness are basic human rights because they are the very reason we exist, the reason we choose to come into this realm of time and space.
Make it fun. Choose Happiness, true Heart-Happiness, and live that personal truth every day. So many stresses and problems created by Ego in opposing this will melt away. Oh, it is a journey of growth, but each day we live our truth, we materialize a bit more of our Happiness.
Blessings for a week of Happiness!
