Happiness Is

I talk to so many unhappy people who seem to be waiting for someone, or something to come into their lives so they can be happy at last. I wish I could tell them the secret to being happy without all this wanting and waiting, but I can't. It's not that I don't know it. I do. It's just that they can't take it from me, no matter how many times I offer it to them.

I know that is difficult to understand. There was a time when it sounded crazy to me too. I had people offer me the key to this information. I had people try to explain what a simple gift it was to open. I even had people try to cram it down my throat, but nothing made it possible for me to even see what it was, let alone accept it.

I can only surmise that this is a secret that comes to us when we are ready for it. That is how I finally got it.

One day I simply realized that happiness never comes from some place else. It's either here, or it's not. If I am unhappy, which I can be, I need to find out what is not right. When the answer comes up with the name of another person, or something I can beg, buy, borrow, or steal, that is the Trickster speaking. He pops up to distract me and keep me running around like a crazy woman looking for placebos. Placebos are those things that take up space (or places) without really filling the hole at all. They are kind of like ghosts, just insubstantial things that can't give me what I really need.

I have to work my way around the placebo and go deeper inside myself to find the real thing. I think it must be different for everyone, but for me it is usually that I am feeling lonely, or alone. I want more love in my life, or I want to be noticed, or appreciated more in some way. Once I discover what the hole is, I need to find a way that I can fill it myself.

One way for me to do that is to love. When I feel my love flooding me, pouring out of me, washing through me, I am always amazed at how wonderful it feels . Another way for me to assuage these feelings is to do something for someone else by volunteering somewhere or being useful. When I am helping someone do something that seems important to me, I never feel lonely or alone.

Sometimes I only need to write in order to feel full and happy, but like I said, I think everyone is different. So...the only advice I can give unhappy people is to stop looking outside yourself and look inward. You are the best thing that has ever happened to you, you just need to find out how.