These days I go through my manuscript for the last time before I let go of it, and several thoughts have emerged. Things I didn’t quite see the first three times I worked through the book, and once again I must say that our way of seeing the world and ourselves comes from the way we consciously and unconsciously interpret our world.
The following dawned on me when I today removed moss between the tiles in my driveway and thought about what I had read in my book earlier in the day.
Joy and happiness do not exist – out there!
Joy, happiness, sadness and sorrow are part of what we call life. Wanting one over the other, will only result in a life of frustrated search and imbalance. We cannot have more happiness than sorrow, for everything in this universe is in balance. Only we are not.
Eckhart Tolle describes it so simply: “Accept the present as if you have chosen it yourself”.
When we accept that all our problems through life are created in our own mind, through our interpretations of the situations we end up in – voluntarily or involuntarily – we can begin to look at all situations as neutral. They just ARE and it is up to us to let them be the path of life instead of BUMPS on the path of life. Instead of something that should not be there, BUMPS can be accepted as part of living.
Joy and happiness cannot be a goal in the future (that was the goal I set for myself two years ago), because then it will remain in the future. We will never achieve it, for joy and happiness can only be found in the NOW, and when the NOW is accepted as it is, we can influence the next NOW in the decision we are making right now. In this way it becomes so clear to me that NOW is the only thing that exists, and what a relief.
My wish for you as a reader of my forthcoming book is that you might find the same freedom and relief as I did.
Love,