The peculiar thing about us humans is, we spend a lot of time working to find people and things that will make us happy. In fact, we seem to spend the majority of our time doing this. However, there is no guarantee that any of this effort will work. There are lots of people who have hordes of people around them, and who have lots of things, but have been unable to make themselves happy.
The truth is, happiness can be had with little effort. Have you ever been happy for no reason at all? Of course you have. Without anything changing in life, happiness just appears. We see it in young children all the time. In fact, we expect to see it in children. If you happen to ask a smiling child why he or she is so happy, at best the answer may be, “Because.” For an adult this may be an unsatisfying answer, but for the child it is the truth -- happiness exists “just because.”
As we age we seem to lose touch with happiness-for-no-reason-at-all. We see a world where everyone is striving for stuff, striving for popularity, striving, striving, striving. The natural fount of happiness we once enjoyed disappears as we join them. However, that happiness is not gone. All that happened is we lost our connection to it. This book is about recovering that connection.
We all grow up believing that if we work hard, and if we are good people, we will enjoy good relationships with others, good health, success and a long life. Obviously this is not true. There are a lot of rich old people who are not happy. What we have, what we do, and the other circumstances of our lives do not provide authentic happiness. Instead, happiness comes from inside of us, and all by itself enables us to have secure relationships, good health, more success and longer lives.
So, what is the secret of being happy? Being happy is a little like flipping a switch. When it’s on you are happy and when it’s off you are not. It’s so easy. How else can you explain being happy for no reason. What you need to do is learn to turn it on, and keep it turned on. This book discusses seven practices that help you do that.
There is a lot of wisdom available about how to be happy. Most of it is thousands of years old, but some is quite new. The seven practices we will look at incorporate this wisdom to help you learn how to turn on happiness in your life. This kind of happiness does not require changing anything in your life. All you have to do is learn to turn it on.
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I came of age in the seventies, in and around San Francisco, which was a center for many Human Potential Movements and practices. It was then that I had my first important experiences of a new way of being in the world. It was a different way of being than anything I had previously experienced. Many times, I noticed that my waking mind had stilled. As we used to say, the inner dialog had stopped. And when it stopped, it left a kind of excitement, peace, and happiness that I had not previously known.
These were memorable experiences for me because my ordinary way of going about the world used to involve a constant stream of thoughts involving doubts, dissatisfaction, fear, and anger. The sense I had of myself during these remarkable times stayed with me. It kept telling me that I had to find ways to repeat them.
Over the next forty years I learned how to regularly let my awareness settle into a place of simple happiness and joy. I usually did this in meditation. However, I also learned to bring this way of being back into my normal world of living and working.
When my daughter was in college, and beginning to think about graduate school and work, she was unsure of the direction she should take and asked for advice. As she and I talked, I began considering everything I had learned in a new light. I had found my path to happiness, and I was living it. She was just starting on that path. What should I tell her?
My first bit of advice to her was obvious. You should do what you are good at and what you like to do. It was the liking what you do part that was the stickler. What does one really like to do? I thought, if you can find your purpose in life, then you will probably like doing what it takes to accomplish that purpose. Then, I began to realize that, underlying all purposes is the desire for happiness. I began to see that if you can find happiness, the rest of your life pretty much sorts itself out.
If happiness is the purpose, then how do you “get happy?” This is obviously a question for the ages and there are myriad opinions. Still, I set it as my goal to find out what others have said about this. On the surface, nobody agrees on exactly how to bring happiness into one’s life. However, beneath the surface there is a common denominator in all approaches to being happy. This book describes what lies at the heart of those approaches.
In many ways this book is my own quest for the truth of happiness: what it is, what it is not, and how to welcome it into my life, and yours.
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This book offers time-tested advice on how to find unconditional happiness. I do not mean to give advice to anyone seeking help with a psychological condition. I am just a writer and a seeker of truth. I am not a therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist.
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I want to express gratitude to my wife Beth for patiently reading several drafts of this book, and providing her wise comments and criticisms. Beth and I have been on a long spiritual journey together and along the way she has learned much that I have not. Her input has been invaluable. Also, I want to thank my daughter, Rebecca, who provided much needed guidance on Western philosophical thinking, and whose original questions inspired this book. Thanks to Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, DC, healer and friend, who provided much needed encouragement and insights. Finally, thanks to Jo-Ann Langseth for her work in editing this book. Jo-Ann’s knowledge of the subject matter and insights greatly improved the book.
D. E. Hardesty
March 2015