Happiness is Not the Point

 Don’t worry, be happy.  Bobby McFerrin

That song emerged at just the right time for me. I had recently, suddenly, become a widow with three little boys. Hearing it was like getting a hug from God, like discovering a pocket of air in an undersea cave. It was a momentary sweet relief. It became my mantra.

Becoming a young widow also fed my victimhood. I didn’t look for lessons; I looked for someone to save me. I didn’t look within, or ask my Creator for guidance; I fumbled and stumbled, and pretended to be strong.

Happiness is real - it’s a gift. It’s peace, serenity, joyfulness. I see it as a wave cresting in the ocean, as a welcome surprise. It’s the other side of unhappiness, discontent, the troughs in that ocean. It doesn’t arise when called.

So what do I do when I find myself confused, shaken, saddened, angered? How do I grow through the challenges that inevitably show up? What are the lessons for me to learn? Where is my Higher Power when it feels as if I’ve been abandoned by all that I think of as God?

That’s where I find my work. That’s when I reach out to others, and listen to their experience, strength, and hope. That’s how I know that it’s time to meditate and listen to that ‘still, small voice’, and recognize that this, too, will pass. 

I’ll feel happiness again in all the sweet ways it shows itself. I will also have the inner strength and wisdom to know that as I encounter unpleasantness, I have learned to see it as temporary, as a lesson I can then pass on to someone else as I share my own experience, strength, and hope.

Don’t worry - simply be.