We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
This phrase in the Declaration of Independence suggests that happiness is a needle in a haystack to be located, hunted down and pounced upon before it gets away, never to return.
When I follow that logic, I am anything but happy or successful.
I’m in my happy place right now. Who could really be negative at the beach?
I had to take a spiritual road trip here, because I was making myself miserable pursuing happiness. I had chased the American Dream until I had overtaken it, run it over and left it in the dust.
The rhythm of the wind and the waves echoes my heartbeat and reminds me that life, success, happiness and answered prayers have a rhythm all of their own. I have to listen to myself to hear them. If I’m in this rhythmic flow, letting the waves carry me, I realize all of these things are the same thing.
But, happiness happens when the only thing we are pursuing is our true self, tuning inward instead of onward. When we pursue “ happiness” or “ success” in and of themselves, we lose our only true compass: the conviction of our own hearts.
The hardest and most worthwhile thing any of us will ever do is to be ourselves, no matter the pressure to be someone else. It’s starts with the courage to meet our own eyes in the mirror each day, and say, “ I’m here for you and I won’t let you down.”
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Don’t give in to your fears, if you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.
Author of “The Alchemist” Paulo Coelho
The key to my successes and the reason for my failures was agility or the lack thereof. I had to learn to be limber enough to get out of God’s way.
Get out of my head and my plans: they are interfering with what is already happening on my behalf. Just because I don’t know what is happening, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
At this moment, I am reminding myself:
Let happiness happen. Stop looking. Stop chasing. Stop forecasting. It’s happening now in this moment. Let it fall on me like rain. Let it happen. That sounds like success to me.
To paraphrase my friend and great songwriter, Chris Taylor,
Now the ears of my ears awake,
Now the eyes of my eyes are open.
Yes! Is the living thing. Yes! is the only living thing.