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The most important lesson

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Looking for future happiness does not work so well.

Even if you reach it β€” it will most certainly not last.

You will get ill. People will not like you. You will have stress. There will be bad weather.

No matter how much you struggle, no matter how rich you get: You will not be able to hold on to your health or wealth.

Happiness now?

Why are young children so happy? Why is the world such a marvelous place for them?

They like the packaging of your birthday present more than the present itself. You give them a leave and they are delighted. You show them a dog and the love it. You smile at them and they are happy.

Of course: Live for a young child is not only happy. But I think they can teach us an important lesson about happiness.

Children do not try to be happy. They just are happy.

They do not need anything for it. No money. No special moment. Nothing.

All our concepts about happiness are just a hindrance to achieve it.

If you embrace the current moment, you notice that it isn’t only bad or good. It’s both.

When I started to look I noticed something great:

Even if I have a β€œbad” morning β€” a moment later I see the sun through the office window and I am happy.

I am stuck in a train that does not move for 10 minutes, then I notice a loving mother and a happy child playing. And I am happy together with them.

When I walk through storm and rain to work I listen. It sounds marvelous. It smells marvelous. Yes it’s cold and wet β€” but what a great show. It makes me happy.

This is the same happiness that you have when you climb on a mountain and look down and you have this β€œwow” feeling. You stoped thinking. You started looking. You are happy.

You can be happy

The lesson is this:

Every time you think a moment is bad: Embrace it.

The resistance to it often hurts much more than just to be with it.

Stop thinking. Have a good look around you. Try to feel your body and take a few deep breaths.

Be here. Now. Not in the past, not in the future. Because otherwise you will just miss what makes you happy.

You have everything you need for happiness. Right here. Now. Stop looking for it somewhere else.