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The Search For Happiness

by Bernard Voo

I was compelled to write to everyone after a fellow friend told me she is searching for happiness.

Once upon a time there was a boy who went on a search for "happiness". He found a toy car and he had a great time playing with it. He eats with it, studies with it and even sleeps with it. Then one day he accidentally broke it and it was beyond repair. He cried and cried and for days he was unhappy. His parents brought him another but he only wanted that car...

Then finally his parents decided to buy him a bicycle hoping their son would find "happiness". True enough he was delighted! Looking at their son finally smile again was a great relieve to the caring parents. He rode the bicycle night and day, day after day, week after week. Life was merry. Then one day his bike was stolen...The boy was so mad he jumped and jumped, kicking and punching everything he saw. Life was miserable for him. There were many beautiful things around him but he couldn't see it. Life was miserable...

He decided he was going to buy himself another bike, this time round it's going to be a better bike and he would buy the best lock in the world to lock it. After months of savings he did exactly that. True enough he was delighted. He went to school and he started showing off to his friends. It was great! The kids loved it and they all asked if they could ride it for a while. "Of course not!" he said. It was after all his most precious!

Seeing him so arrogant, his friends all left him. The boy was now alone playing with his toy day in and day out. Soon he felt lonely. He tried to entice his friends to play with him but they were not keen. Life was miserable again...

I can go on writing but I believe you're starting to get my point. Human being went on a journey to look for happiness, in actual fact what they found was a stimulant, not happiness. As the stimulant brings them joy, they equate it to joy. Thus when it was taken away from them they become "unhappiness". To overcome the unhappiness, they replace it with another stimulant and when this stimulant wears off they get "unhappiness" again.

We basically replace a problem with a solution that is potentially another problem.

So what is happiness? Happiness is a state of mind. A choice that we don't usually make. The late Rev. Anthony Demello once said that "We usually do not choose to be happy, otherwise why are we unhappy?"

The truth is: True happiness comes from within, not without.

Until and unless you realized that you are actually already happy, that YOU are HAPPINESS itself, all your other happiness you found are just an illusion—fragile and temporary—because it doesn't even exist except in your mind.

Question: I am jobless, my debts are pilling and my family needs money, how can I be happy at times like this?

Answer: You may not be happy but it is unnecessary to be unhappy. Be focus, put all your attention and heart to what you are doing and not the results of it. If you are looking for a job, LOOK for it, KNOCK on the doors! Not whether or not will you get the job. If you are closing a deal, CLOSED the deal! Not whether or not if the customer would buy.

Question: What if everything I do doesn't give me the results?

Answer: Then doing would be better than not doing. Least you know you have done it and CORRECTIONS can be made.

Question: But I have debts that keeps piling, how can I afford to make mistakes and corrections?

Answer: Either way your debts would still pile. If you had done your best and I mean your best, and your debts still piles, it is still better than not doing or BEING your best. If all systems down, you became a bankrupt, that's what it is: "Bankrupt", not the end of the world. Sometime that's how things are and it may become an opportunity for you. So if you are stuck to your feelings of unhappiness you will be like the boy who misses all the beautiful things around him. Stop feeling miserable and sorry, and start looking; be alert and aware. Perhaps this is the best time for you to be the brand new you?

With love I bless you all happiness and good fortune.

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