Greetings and Happy 2015!!!

Three years ago, I started blogging on this site. I have written of some more serious topics and I have shared lighter and hopefully enjoyable stories and experiences. My New Year’s wish this year is somewhat of bridge between more serious topics of faith and spirituality and another serious but positive topic of achieving true happiness in our lives.

Over the last 20 years, I have read many books that I guess you would classify as self-help. I don’t really know what draws me to these books and I can’t really say that any one of them has helped me any particular way, but it does seem that they are slowly but surely having some positive effect on my life and they have set me on somewhat of a journey.

The Journey to Enlightenment

Within the books that I have read, from authors like Victor Frankl, Eckhart Tolle, Osho, Deepak Chopra, David Brooks and Clayton Christensen, I have noticed many common trends in their focus. At the heart of each of them, there is an intention to direct the readers towards “true happiness” and a common thread and wisdom that implies that true happiness is more of a state of being than a collection of any particular things or experiences. Some speak of a journey to “enlightenment” whereby you become aware of the importance of ‘presence’ and the beauty around you; this is what I’m calling ‘heaven on earth’. In his book Fame Fortune and Ambition, Osho describes the steps towards awakening as “Change your basic philosophy from that of an achiever. Relax into your being... don’t try to improve. You are perfect as you are. And it (life) will become a morning walk with no destination, going nowhere. You can enjoy each tree and each sun ray and each bird and each person who passes by. “. 

In his book, Jesus, a fictional story of Jesus’ missing years between adolescence and adulthood, Deepak, discusses the path to enlightenment as “The material world, the Kingdom of God and God himself area all present at this very moment in you and outside of you.. the two lost dimensions have always been here. We have just mistakenly perceived that they are not. “.

While I in no way claiming to have reached anything close to enlightenment, I can say that I seem to have become more positive, more at peace with my surroundings, more accepting of the things I cannot change and most importantly, I seem to find more beauty in the things and the people around me. Together, these things have made me happier and more satisfied person. To play the devil’s advocate to my own state of mind and experience, it may just be that I am mellowing with age, and that as the kids mature and develop lives for themselves, I have less worries and stress and these factors could definitely be positive contributors to my developing happiness and peace. Regardless, I believe that “studying” how to be happy, has contributed as well. That said, I would like to summarize some of the key learnings that I have taken from my informal research.

The only way to change your world is to change yourself

One of the most fundamental things that aids both in our ability to change and in crystallizing our objectives for change, is realizing that the change must come from within us. We often view the world as many things that are happening around us; “that jerk (driver) just cut me off”, “my boss is tyrant”, “my spouse doesn’t understand me” and so on, and so on. We see ourselves as good people who that can’t be happy because there are so many negative things in our lives. One of my favorite songs of the late Michael Jackson is “Man in the mirror”. His point is of course, the person in the mirror is where the change has to start.

While the King of Pop is not a learned scholar on affecting personal growth, the song carries both a strong message and is wrapped up in one of the most enthusiastic and motivating compositions of 20^th century music, in my opinion. Of course we know the message is founded in much wisdom and research – the problem is within us to solve.

Try to step outside yourself.

Awareness and objectivity are keys to achieving peace. Too often, our unhappiness comes from our reaction to the events around us. Our initial thought is that if we react this way to this situation, we will change our surroundings and people will see our side of things and the situation will improve; we will be less stressed and happier. However, as we say and do things in these times of reaction, they rarely contribute to peace or happiness for us or those around us. These things generally escalate situations and cause more negativity in our lives; in the end making us more stressed and less happy which of course is counter to our goal but we so often choose this path. One tactic that I try to practice to pull myself out of the heat of a situation is to literally rise (my consciousness) out of situation and observe “Isn’t it interesting how this is affecting me?” “Why am I frustrated over this?” “What positive thing can I do right now to deflate this situation?”. While it initially takes effort to achieve this objectivity, it invariably helps to turn negative situations around. After a while, this approach becomes less effort and becomes part of your natural response.    

Be kind, times three.

The 19^th Century American writer Henry James said “There are three things in human life that are important. The first is to be kind, the second is to be kind and the third is to be kind”. This is such a simple rule but it can have such a profound effect. What would your day look like if you were ALWAYS kind? If someone was rude to you, you looked at how they must be having a bad day and offered kind words to turn the situation around. If your spouse told you to do something that you really didn’t want to do, you kindly did it anyway or explained how you will make it a priority, at a prescribed time, and then stick to getting it done. What if you could find the time to help someone that can’t help himself. It sounds easy enough, but just try to observe yourself for a 12 hour day, from 8:00 in the morning until after dinner. Were you kind at every possible opportunity? My personal experience is that again, at first, it takes effort, but every occurrence of kindness creates both joy in others and in you as you do it. Last Thanksgiving, my son Jared and I, were on our way home from a movie when we came upon a traffic jam. Everyone was making their way around a car stopped at an intersection with its hazard lights flashing. Of course this driver must have a cell phone; of course help must be on the way and we’re free to drive on. For some reason, I thought the kind and responsible thing would be to stop and check. It was a young lady who had ran out of gas. When I stepped beside her door and she rolled down the window, she broke out crying hysterically. Somehow, no help was on the way. Being only 5 minutes from home we offered to go and get our lawn mower gas can and get her going to a gas station. She was literally overwhelmed with gratitude but equally important, we felt really great about what we had done to help her. Now I can’t say that I stop for every person on the side of the road in the Greater Toronto Area, but I do try to be kind 12 hours a day.  

Our ego is our worst enemy.

We all have an ego – it is impossible to live in the world with an unbiased view since by all of our understanding is developed in our own mind, right next to where our own awareness and ego exists. However, our identity is one thing and our ego is yet another. Merriam Webster’s defines ego as “the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world”. Of course, we absolutely need this sense of self; Freud said that the ego separates out what is real. It helps us to organize our thoughts and make sense of them and the world around us. However, when we choose to live our life to please our ego, we can make choices that don’t really contribute to our real happiness. Osho states that “When you do something, watch, be alert. And if it leads to misery, then you know well that it was ego. Then the next time, be alert, don't listen to that voice. If it is nature, it will lead you towards a blissful state of mind. Nature is always beautiful, ego (is almost) always ugly.” Our real consciousness can exist in harmony or acceptance with our own fears and weakness. Our ego, however, wants to hide these fears and weakness and creates a wall of rationale around them that attempts to justify the ego’s viewpoint. It creates views of things happening around us that are not necessarily founded in reality, or at least, not considerate of the situation and feelings of those around us. It is ego that justifies our feelings of insult when someone neglects to invite us to a meeting or a party that we would like to be at. It is our ego that makes us rationalize why we don’t have to do something kind, when we know that we could really help in some way if we chose to make the effort.

Bad things do happen.

Some time ago, I wrote about our niece Laura’s amazing son Wesley, or Super Wes as she calls him. Diagnosed with an extremely aggressive brain tumor at the tender age of 1, he and his family and supporters have gone through countless hours of treatment and therapy over the last 3 years. Bad things do happen and we can’t control that. For Wesley, things have gotten amazingly better and he is now approaching 4 years of age. I have also blogged about other tragedies lately that have happened within out Kamazooie community. We cannot control these things and we cannot let them control or define us. They are an unfortunate outcome of the beautiful and natural (but random) world that we live in. In his book ‘The Power of Now’, Eckhart Tolle says “as long as you are in this dimension, you are subject to its cyclical nature and to the impermanence of all things… there is birth and death, creation and descruction… This is reflected everywhere: in the life cycle of a star or a planet, a physical body, a tree, a flower; in the rise and fall of nations, political systems… and in the inevitable cycles of gain and lost in the life of an individual.” What we can do in this area is help others who have had bad things happen to them. Stop by a sick friend’s house and cheer them up; get involved in a charity to help be part of a bigger solution; just be there and talk to a friend who has lost someone close. These are things that help those dealing with grief but they also contribute to our own well-being when we realize we’ve done something helpful or comforting.

Awareness is a key skill.

In the paragraphs above, we see how awareness of self, or objectivity, allows us to side-step negative situations. However, awareness is a much more useful skill that can allow us to see the beauty around us and recognize larger world that we live in and even save our life or the life of someone near. While I have only begun to work on developing awareness, I can see the profound effect that it can have if we can become more and more aware. There are so many adages in our everyday vernacular like “seek first to understand and then to be understood”, “don’t judge a person until you walk a mile in their shoes” and so many more that are trying to point out the importance of being aware of others and of the interactions that are occurring around us. While a more spiritualistic awareness is perhaps a loftier goal (that I’m still working on) just literally being aware of what we’re doing, and not talking or texting while driving or walking can produce life-saving results. Awareness in our career can help us understand why our employer or our boss has to make tough decisions that we might not be fond of. Being alert and aware of signs from the people around us might allow us to help someone who is vulnerable or just having a bad day. Awareness within our own mind can help us identify what is really bothering us and creating stress or negativity in our lives. While there is much work written on how to achieve greater awareness, it is not something that has really become mainstream and even if you we aware of some techniques, we often lack the time or discipline to focus on practicing it. One common way I have learned to practice awareness that shared in a class in the Toronto School of Philosophy is to sit in a quiet place and practice going through each of your 5 senses, taste, smell, hearing, touch (feeling) and sight (but with your eyes closed. But when you do this, don’t focus on what is going on in what you hear or see or feel, just focus on the experience of the receiving the senses. For example, when you hear someone in the distance talking or shouting, don’t listen to the works and get carried away with why they are shouting (this is analysis and thought which are not to be mistaken with true presence and being), just explore the listening and sounds but don’t analyze them.     

Beauty is all around us.

Perhaps the most impactful thing that brings peace and joy to my life is looking for the beauty in all things. This can be developed on top of the objectivity and awareness skills talked about above. Nature is the easiest place to find beauty for me; in flowers, trees, the activities and behaviors of other beings around us, we see amazing things in nature. This summer, as we sat on our deck for a Saturday morning coffee, my wife Loreen and I watched as a bee’s “saddle bags” got more and more full of yellow pollen as he buzzed around one of the flower pots Loreen had planted for our deck.

Another time, while walking our dog Giddeon in the early spring, when there weren't yet many bird sounds in the air, I heard a bird call (and I’m not a bird watcher) that I had heard before but had never traced to a source. I stopped and looked around for awhile, much to Giddeon’s dismay, and found out that it was a cardinal that produces this lovely song.

As we look around, even in our own neighborhoods, we can be amazed by the beauty around us and it brings almost instantaneous peace and happiness and brightens your day. We can also see the beauty in the people around us. If someone reacts, even negatively, look (or inquire) deeply and you may find that they are doing what they’re doing to protect someone else. Often you will find goodness behind what you originally thought was selfishness or defensiveness. We too are part of nature and are beautiful animals acting on instincts that have formed from literally millions of years of evolution. These instincts are both simple, in our ability to act on them quickly, and complex, in that why we actually undertake them may not be immediately apparent. Then of course there is the beauty of real and true friendship. Above all, we are emotional animals; David Moore quotes in his amazing book, The Social Animal “In fact, we are separated from the other animals because we have phenomenal social skills that enable us to teach, learn, sympathize, emote… We seek, more than anything else, to establish deeper and more complete connections (with others)”. Seeing the beauty and uniqueness in the people around you, and not focusing what you perceive to be their flaws, is another practice that can produce beautiful results in happiness.  

Whether there is another heaven outside of our world, I will not comment because that is an issue of faith that I choose to stay away from publicly. However, what I can say is, somehow within the last 10 or more years, I am definitely able to see much more of the heaven that exists right here on earth. 

I blogged recently about our trip to Northern California wine country; in one of the wineries we stopped in at, I saw this quote from Albert Einstein of all people. I guess if someone as smart as he chooses to see the beauty in all things, who are we to question that type of insight.

With this, I wish you peace, love and happiness in your journey to enlightenment and a very healthy and prosperous 2015.

P.S. Please feel free to share, broadcast or repost the link if you feel this content may be beneficial to others. Also, feel free to send direct messages on Kamazooie or Facebook or brian.ritchie@rogers.com if you would like to get recommendations on any of the reading material quoted.