Green Lights

Why do we engage in the "All lights must be green mentality?"  There are things we think we want to accomplish and go after in this life and yet we don't even engage in a process of getting started because we can see from the moment of conceptualization of something new that there may be many barriers and obstacles to get from point A to B in our concept or desire.  It seems we sometimes do this with our own happiness as well in thinking, "I'll be happy when this or that occurs" or "I'll have that sense of accomplishment only when this or that happens."  The funny thing is that if we have not found a way to make and maintain our own happiness, nothing we get, achieve or create will ever truly make us happy regardless of whether the lights are red, yellow or green.  We may ultimately get to that place we always wanted to be in life and find there is no happiness there at all except for that happiness that we took with us.

We are mistakenly taught that it is the outside world that generates and/or controls our happiness through the world of materialism, human validation, that job, this color and kind of car or whatever else fills the blank...will really make us happy.  These are really such silly thoughts as the reality is nothing in the outside world can make us happy and if we don't learn this and try to understand it now, we may engage in all manner of crazy things to make us happy only to find we are in no greater state at the end of our happiness seeking or unhappiness avoiding endeavors.  So, consider this, if nothing in the outside world can make you truly happy and only you hold the only true power to grant yourselves happiness, that too means that nothing in the outside world can make you unhappy.

I know, I know.  You're writhing in vehement disagreement at this point but I'd challenge you to retain a very curious and open mind about now.  Consider how very empowering these words might be to you.  If no one has the power to make you happy and no one in this world has the power to make you unhappy, this means you truly are in charge of your own sense of well-being and happiness and you create it with your own controllable thoughts and associated emotions.  I know it might seem such a stretch because you are more than certain only the next promotion will prove to the world how amazing you can be or the next beautiful car you come pulling up to the office in will make you one to be truly admired.  Likewise, your thoughts might also lead you to contemplate the seeming fact that if only by some stroke of luck those mean people in your life would cut you some slack today, you would not be unhappy, dejected or miserable in any way.

We misperceive control sometimes not realizing it is not other people or things that hold the strings to happiness in our lives.  We need not wait for all of the lights to turn green in order for us to be happy.  In fact, we can find happiness at every road block and red light we encounter.  It's up to us to decide what we wish to feel, what we wish to pursue and what we wish to contemplate and attach emotion to.  If we were to truly stand in our own light, we'd never prevent our own happiness by seeing it as out of reach of our grasp due to lacking funds, lacking outside world validation of any sort or tying our happiness to the achievement of a thing.  Live your lives and know that your moods and perceptions are solely generated by your thoughts and what you hold as truth.  What you think is true based on a perception or even less valid, an assumption, can only ever seem like the truth but can never be definitively so.  You  are just not limited by your perceptions like this.  If you think you cannot be happy until you achieve or attain this or that, consider why those thoughts exist...consider why you are limiting you in your own thoughts.  Take a deep breath and realize that life was meant to be enjoyed at every step and with every breath...the journey is the destination...our destination here in the physical is death.  So, live and be joyful because you exist...know that you are love and loved...understand that there is much more to life than handing the power over to the world to generate your happiness.  You are truly the only source that owns that right.  Much love and light always.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart, Photo http://www.hookingupsmart.com