”Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”  - Dalai Lama

We spend so much of our lives in the pursuit of happiness.  We read book after book, go to seminars, mediate everything we can think of to find that thing called happiness.  We think there is some special formula to find happiness.  Someone out there who will bring us our happiness.  We say it all the time with a new relationship "He makes me so happy."  But what happens when the euphoria of a new relationship or a new job or whatever wears off?  The high of happiness dissipates and we are left wondering why we are no longer happy.  We are looking for happiness in all the wrong places.  It is not something we can find, not something we can buy or be given.  It cannot be found in the things and people around  us....it can only be found within ourselves.

Its like what the Dalai Lama says, happiness comes from our own actions.  We dictate our own happiness even if we don't realize that we have that ability.   We don't realize the power to find happiness lies within ourselves.  Why not?  Does it seem to hard for us to think that we grant ourselves happiness?  We are the ones who allow ourselves to remain suffering as I talked about in my last post.  We keep ourselves in this bubble of pain and suffering afraid of the unknown that we don't realize if we let go, we could find the happiness we so desperately want.  We tend to think external forces can break our force field and bring us happiness.   But until we let go of the suffering, let go of the pain and hurt, we can never find the happiness we are longing for. How can we break out of that cycle of perpetual suffering and find the happiness we desire?  How can we truly, honestly be happy if we remain bitter and jaded?