A ton of happiness? A week? A year?

How much happiness do we really need?  I assume we all want to be happy all the time, although we all know how unrealistic that is.  How could we want something so badly even though we are pretty sure it cannot possibly happen? Or let me rephrase this: How can we expect to be happy all the time when we know it is impossible?  And we do expect, otherwise how do you explain our sorrow and frustration, our disappointment.. our fall from above when we are sad.  We are usually not only upset that something has happened, but we are also - at that time- upset that we are upset;upset that at that point of time we failed to hold on to happiness...

It is a bit weird, our complexities.. and our structure.. how we are made.  I challenge any of you not to know that inevitably something will happen that is not as we want.. that a day will be too hot.. or the car will be slightly damaged in an accident or your boss will be grumpy at one point of time.. or your spouse will wake up with a crumbled face.. it is bound to happen, not because I am pessimistic, for I am not and this is not at all the purpose of writing this blog.   It is just that life is too full and too varied.. and we are too rich and full of values, beliefs, emotions, histories and futures that we cannot keep the same pace.  Even if the examples I mentioned above are trivial and by seeing life differently, I have come to the point that I do not even look at my car if it gets hit.. that I invent techniques to manage a grumpy boss or a bad weather or a hideous traffic... Other things will happen; someone we like or love will have a problem, or get sick or die.. and it will hurt.  We all know that.  So, how come we expect from ourselves - rather than from life- to be happy all the time? It would be like having a permanent face lifting job over and over again..

It is only natural that we go up and down.. what we tend to forget however- far easier than our expectations of happiness- is our moments of happiness... our anticipation of a well-deserved success and how it felt it to taste it.. our rush into the arms of a long-awaited lover...the first time you hold a baby in your arms.. the first time you dive.. the joys of innocent conversations with friends at school or at the faculty... there are so many moments of happiness.. and yet, we behave as if they were not enough.. and that is the point of this blog: how much happiness do we need to have - bearing in mind we can't have it 24/7/all our life.. how much will be enough to fill us with gratitude ? how much will be enough to sort of extend vertically or horizontally to the rest of our years.. along the line of time?

In the famous song "if you go away" the words say " If you go away, I will understand.. give me just enough love to hold in my hand.."  can we hold love ? not necessarily in our hands but as one of the hues that colour our spirits? can we hold joy as an integral part of our inner being.. so that it is not a transient visitor but rather a visitor that has changed us.. coloured us.. left some real finger prints on our being and left us a more capable, optimistic and grateful person???

It feels theoretical.. but it also feels greedy.. If we have known joy.. if happiness have crept to us or showered us from heaven..can we blame her for going away .. knowing that she has to because we are extremely complex and rich and vivid creatures? knowing that as Gibran Khalil Gibran says : " your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentime filled with your tears. And how else can it be?" (The Prophet, on joy and sorrow)

A friend of mine always tells me that magic - and I dare add happiness- likes to be invited...Actually, Happiness and magic are quite more generous than that.. sometimes even without invitation, they fly and land on your elbow.. or cover your hair with golden dust....but I do agree with my friend.. why not invite some happiness today?  If it is from the past, call for it... call it here now.. and don't get nostalgic about it.. savour it just as it was back then... fresh and sweet... if it s for now, call it with a song, with a word, with a thought, and look up there for a future knowing that just as she cannot stay all the time, she is also bound to come.. and she is a very very good listener.. call her.. she will come.. hold it inside until it transforms you into a better person..than you already are.. enjoy her company and be her friend. She likes that :)

Grounding

I realized yesterday that out of the whole 30 days of June, I have worked so far only like 6 days!!! and yet, it was the most hectic month of the year so far!!! not that anything happened extraordinarily.. no big chunks taken from my time to fight a fire.. no major problems (thank God) nothing.. really..

I guess it was the chaos in my head..in my heart and consequently all around. I felt lost.. chattered most of the time. I wanted to do things.. lots of things..and I didn't.  I started stuff and left them out.. and I thought and thought.. not following a single thread of thought.  And now I feel I want some grounding. 

I want to sit on my own.. and lay around me all the pages of my life like a pack of cards.. and take one by one and look at each.. thoroughly.  I want to sit still..be silent.  I want to disconnect from the world outside and let the clatter inside come out and stack themselves quietly where they please.

Even in my various days off, that was not the case. I can hardly remember what was the case.  I didn't exercise, read, tidy up, pamper myself, work, have lengthy conversations with the kids.  What was I doing? It was going up and down a virtual ladder of nothingness.. or rather the same ideas that have come to occupy me.. like a submissive land. 

But enough!  Today, I have my chance. The house is empty.  My family have travelled somewhere for a couple of days..and I have the house, my own physical land for myself. I have the time for myself, to almost do whatever I please with it, like a an empty bowl..and I have me.

I remember once at meditation, there was this exercise in which you visualize yourself as a tree and you - closing your eyes- imagine you.. tall.. and deep.. nourished by the soil...joyful by the sun..and then you can extend your branches.. this is the picture I keep visualizing eyes open :)

So, I started the day calmly. I am no longer forcing myself to do anything. But, I am keeping the quiet stillness inside.  I am not answering phones, except the ones I have to or want to.  I am elminating all excess clatter.  And phyiscally, I realized that I want to organize my million papers, files and books...I am organizing them into topics: coaching, leadership, happiness, assessement centres, training, miscellaneous.. I am still half way through..but it is already giving me a good sense of peace..

Tuning the world today to my tune.. is marvellous.. I do not have to dance to anybody's song.. I don't have to dance at all, if I don't want to. I don't have to do anything. But, I am doing things.. all the things that are coming naturally in a space of mine.

How many times, we run..in someone else's marathon... or go and come to and fro reaching nowhere. Clarity! yes, that's it quiet clarity, that's my quest today. It can be lazy. It doesn't have to, though. It can be whatever it wants to be.. and that's cool.

For without roots, without seeing our trunk..our branches are not really within our control. Today, is mine. Today, I live for me.  Today, create my own space and I ground.