The buildings blocks of human life are not DNA (that is just software). The building blocks of our lives are concepts: the concept of oneself, the concept of surrounding reality; the concept of happiness, etc.
When our concepts are wrong, so is the life that we build for ourselves, and we end up unhappy.
We may mask our unhappiness with chocolate, sex, drugs and/ or shopping – buying a temporary fix of serotonin so we don’t notice our true emotional state.
But when we refuse to see that our concepts are wrong, we get sick. Chronic illnesses are the result of chronic unhappiness.
Since most of us barricade ourselves behind the wrong concepts, most of us end up ill, and so pharmaceutical and medical industries are the major industries of the modern world.
Most of our concepts are wrong, because most of us watch TV and read newspapers.
But it is not negative news that kills us, it is the advertisement.
We all are victims of relentless marketing, because advertisement slips in the suggestions to our subconsciousness on what concepts we should acquire.
The beloved American Dream is: a wife / husband + 2.5 kids + dog / cat in a spacious McMansion with formal dining room, family room on top of living room, more bedrooms and bathrooms then one can count; manicured front lawn and a large backyard with a swimming pool, 2+ cars garage; college education and successful careers.
The suburbs are full of such families, and most of them are uniquely unhappy.
I too had a concept of happiness similar to that, except that I hate suburbs and prefer to live in a city but would love a house in a country as well.
This dream fell apart 3 years ago when I found myself physically ill because I no longer could stomach my marriage. So we’ve separated.
In fact, my concept of happiness began to destruct 5 years ago, when my husband said, “Let’s make a girl you’ve always wanted”. It’s true: since I was a little girl, I always wanted to have 2 children: first, a boy, and then a girl.
When my son was born, I wanted to wait at least 5 years before another pregnancy as he was a difficult baby and I always favored a larger age separation between children.
The timing of my husband’s offer was perfect. Yet I felt physically nauseated at the thought and knew the minute he said it that I really don’t want another child.
I underlined “really”, because that is when I began to realize that my concept of happiness did not suit me in my reality.
My life got only tougher in 2007, when, 2 months after I separated from my husband, I lost my major client and The Great Financial Crisis walked into my door.
Three years later, I am a single mom working 60+ hours / wk and on the verge of losing $300/ month of my child support and the babysitter (who is my estranged husband), because his unemployment benefits are set to expire in January. The only job he may get at this point would only cover his rent and food, so he would not be able to spare a dollar for his son. Once working, he would also be unable to pick his son from school twice a week for guitar lessons and choir practice.
That means, life for my son and I is going to get so much tougher.
As I was contemplating this while doing my X-Mass shopping, suddenly my thoughts went into completely different direction:
I started thinking of what REALLY makes me happy, and here’s list:
1) Watching TV with my son, while laying next to him on the couch
2) Dancing with my friends at my annual New Year’s Eve party (the only time I get to dance lately)
3) Talking with my friends in the park, while we watch our kids play and enjoy the beauty of the park
4) doing yoga by the lake in the summer
And then I started thinking back, collecting the very best moments in my life in my memory:
1) I was about 13 y.o. in a summer camp, when I discovered laying in the boat watching the sky. The boat would lull softly under me to the swishing of light waves, and the ever changing beauty of the sky would engross me completely
2) I was about 14 y.o. when I looked out of the window and was caught by the beauty of the falling snow so much that I ran outside and was dancing in the night with the snowflakes
3) I was 17 y.o., laying in the sweetly smelling summer field and feeling THE ONENESS with the earth, the grass, the sky….
4) I was 19 y.o., homeless, living in someone’s basement when THE LIGHT came over me and I SAW AND SPOKE TO GOD.
5) I was in my early twenties, galloping on the naked horse up the hill, when I suddenly thought, “This moment makes the whole life worth living”
6) The same thought occurred to me when in 1993 I was skiing down a sunny slope on Mount Snow, the day after I witnessed the first WTC bombing and quit my job.
7) In 1997, in the jungles of Nepal, I have encountered such a breath-taking peacefulness and beauty that, as I was sliding in the canoe next to man-eating crocodiles sunning by the shore, I could almost pet them, while Himalayan picks were hovering in the distance and the yellow flowers all around me went so well with the blue shades of the sky and the mountains….
8) The kiss I shared with my husband when our son was born
9) The first time my son was skiing the green slope
10) My son singing Santa Lucia at a concert, and strangers screaming “Bravo”, because he sang so beautifully…
Please, don’t get me wrong. I had many, many wonderful moments in my life, and many exciting adventures.
Still, if I die today, these 10 moments would be the crown glory of my life.
Meanwhile, I am killing myself making a buck so I could spend it on some thing I am told would make me or my son happy, worrying about his education, because he would need a good job in order to have his McMansion, 2.5 kids, a wife and a pet.
And no time to watch the sky, dance with the snow flakes, smell the roses…..
I was rich, and I was poor, I had 2 husbands and 3 weddings, and many, many interesting happenings in my life, but only 10 moments of pure and absolute joyful happiness.
Interestingly, most of these moments came to me when I’ve liberated myself from some concept of happiness so I could be one with naked reality.
So I am not going to stress myself of what is going to come in January once my ex’ unemployment benefits run out. I am going “to smell the roses”, making a point of noticing the beauty of each day around me, snuggling next to my son every evening and NOTICING MY HAPPINESS, instead of struggling to fit a concept of happiness and cry about what’s missing from it or MAY GO MISSING.
In fact, it is our fears of not getting something or losing something that make us miserable and cheap away at happiness that is our true Divine nature and so is always there, if only we could take time to notice… Everything else is but a concept.
I am liberating myself from concepts and fears created by them – that’s my New Year resolution.
