For me, happiness is a choice. I believe dat we can all learn to experience lasting happiness in our lives, provided we understand d nature of happiness and the 2 major barriers dat prevent us from finding it.
The first thing to understand about real happiness is dat it is not the result of gratifying our desires, for these are superficial and do not last. True happiness is only possible when we are at peace with ourselves.
This is happiness that is real and enduring, and it begins with the relationship we have with ourself. This relationship determines how we perceive ourself and our life. Our relationship with ourself determines how we respond to life and how we relate to everyone else around us.
If we have a good relationship with ourself, we will perceive the world in a more open warm and positive way — and this will characterize all our interactions. If we have a poor relationship with ourself, the world will appear in a more negative light, and happiness will forever elude us.
The fact that our happiness depends upon our relationship with ourself, leads to an important conclusion: that we alone are responsible for our happiness. Nobody else can make us happy and fulfilled. Only we can decide how we view our lives, and how we choose to respond to all the events in our lives.
This is a liberating conclusion because, if our happiness is our own responsibility, it is always within our power to achieve it. Our relationship with ourself lies squarely in our own hands. Although the route to personal happiness should now be clear, in practice the Toltec approach to life holds that there are two major obstacles that tend to get in the way: poor self-image, and the inability to handle our shortcomings.
Accept Responsibility For Your Self-Image
Self-image is complex, and is made up of everything we believe about ourselves, including our self-esteem, or the value we put upon ourselves. Our self-image tends to trip us up constantly, and this is because we tend to place our value or worth in external attributes.
Most people tend to look upon themselves almost entirely in terms of external attributes, for example, a married woman who has a husband, children, a career as a school teacher, a hobby, a temperament, a talent and, of course, a name and a family lineage. But all of these accessories — for that is exactly what these amount to, are only possible because we have physical bodies. How could you be a mother without your body, or how could you play a musical instrument without hands? Likewise, your family lineage and name are purely dependent upon your having a physical presence. And yet, it is clear that you are not your body. You are far more than just the hands that play your instrument, and more still than your lineage and family name might suggest.
Once we have started to realise that our worth or value does not lie in our accessories — our body, our talents, or status, or brain — we can start to become much more honest and open about ourselves. By detaching from our self-image, we can see that we are not defined by whatever we, or others, have always thought about us. We can also start to look at our shortcomings in a different light, for the way we view and handle our shortcomings is another important factor in how we can come to terms with ourselves and find true happiness and peace.
Use Your Shortcomings
When it comes to being open with others, most of us are simply not happy to show our true self and this is mainly because we find it almost impossible to live with our shortcomings. Very few of us like to own our shortcomings, and so we desperately try to hide them, even from ourselves. But the truth is that our shortcomings are nothing more than our undeveloped potential. Therefore not to own our shortcomings is to deny ourselves part of our potential, and if we do that, is it not surprising that we end up being unhappy?
How does this work? Take the shortcoming of being stubborn. Stubbornness is really undeveloped tenacity and perseverance, which are most precious and valuable assets. The difference between them lies in how we use them as assets.
For example, if you feel inferior to others, and you use this asset to try to prove yourself always right - even if deep down inside you know that you are just being pigheaded - then this is not an asset, but a very real shortcoming which will do nothing for your relationships. If, on the other hand, you say to yourself, “I don't want to come across as a bigot, but I am going to persevere in overcoming my feelings of inferiority”, then you are using stubbornness positively and, therefore, to your advantage. By tenaciously holding onto the belief that you do have value, and that you are not inferior to others, you will in time begin to see and prove this to yourself, simply because you are not prepared to give up on yourself!
As long as you believe that you are inferior, you will never be able to turn your stubbornness into tenacity and so it will always work against you, for what you are doing is using your stubbornness to hold onto the belief that you are inferior. By doing this, you will indeed prove to yourself that you are no good.
If, however, you begin to look at why you feel inferior, you will soon begin to see that what makes you feel inferior is the fact that you are not so self-important and arrogant as others. In actual fact, the feeling of inferiority is only the negative expression of humility, a most honourable trait.
What's more, where there is true humility, there is never any sense of blame. Blame keeps us stuck in the past and unable to seize happiness. But accepting responsibility for what is taking place in our life is empowering, because we can always go on to change what we are doing if life is not what we would like it to be. Again, this just shows that happiness is a choice — our choice.
If we remember that we alone are responsible for our happiness, we can take charge of the circumstances in our life. By remembering that real happiness is only possible if we are at peace with ourselves, we can start to change the way we relate to ourself, to others, and we can finally experience true, enduring happiness throughout our life.
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