Happiness Now!
People are just about as happy
as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
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The most critical word in “Abundantly
Alive Now!” is “Now.” Now! is the only moment any
of us has to be fully alive. An essential part of
being Abundantly Alive Now! is to be happy.
Happiness can be an elusive goal
when we get caught up in the frustrations of life
in our multitasking world, wishing that we were someplace
else, doing something else, not being fully present
in the moment.
Over the weekend, my husband
and I watched “Groundhog Day” on DVD. It is the story
of an obnoxious, caustic, unhappy weatherman on assignment
in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to report on an annual
tradition of pulling a weather-forecasting groundhog
named “Punxsutawney Phil” out of his burrow. If the
groundhog sees his shadow, there will be six more
weeks of winter.
The weatherman—who also happens
to be named Phil—regards the whole event as stupid
and a waste of his time. He can’t wait to get out
of Punxsutawney. Yet, when he wakes up the next morning,
he finds himself reliving Groundhog Day again and
again. We watch Phil go through the stages of grief—denial,
anger, depression, bargaining, and finally acceptance—as
he learns from his mistakes day by day until the morning
he wakes up and realizes the cycle has been broken.
The movie itself doesn’t set
a definite duration for the repeated Groundhog Days.
On the DVD, the director commented that he and the
screenwriter talked about how long Phil lived through
successive Groundhog Days. They thought it had to
be a long enough time to make a real change in Phil—anywhere
from ten to ten thousand years.
My husband and I talked about
what caused the cycle to end. We watched the movie
again to discern exactly what happened to end Phil’s
long, long series of Groundhog Days.
The moment of transition comes
with these words by Phil to his beloved Rita.
No matter what happens
tomorrow...
or for the rest of my life...
I'm happy now
because I love you.
Phil Connors
“Groundhog Day”
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These words are powerful because
they get to the essence of what it means to live “Abundantly
Alive Now!”
And on the day we watched “Groundhog
Day,” we also got a gift in the mail. It was a self-portrait
by our five-year old granddaughter wearing her Daisy
uniform. The Daisies are the youngest level of Girl
Scouts for 5 and 6 year olds.
http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_central/what_is_gs/daisy.asp
Happiness comes of
the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply,
to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
Storm Jameson
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In her self-portrait, Kathryn
has a big smile, her arms are outstretched, the sun
is shining, and she is standing astride two hills.
I remembered from my undergraduate
psychology studies that psychologists use the self-portraits
of children to analyze how children feel about themselves
and their lives.
I looked at the drawing and thought: “This is a happy
child.” When I called her to thank her for the picture,
I said to her: “You look very happy in the picture.”
She said: “I am happy.”
Both Phil and my granddaughter
reached the point of being happy Now! Kathryn doesn’t
have to work at being happy. She simply lives her
life that way. Phil had to undergo a long transition
to decide that he was happy.
It doesn't matter how
long we may have been stuck in a sense of our
limitations. If we go into a darkened room and
turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the
room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten
thousand years—we turn on the light and it is
illuminated. Once we control our capacity for
love and happiness, the light has been turned
on.
Sharon Salzberg
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So, the questions then become:
Is being happy a result or a cause? Do circumstances
need to change for you to become happy, or do you
simply decide to be happy? How long does it take for
you to be happy? Do you have to work at it, or can
you simply decide right Now! to be happy?
Abraham Lincoln said that people
are about as happy as they make up their minds to
be. Can happiness really be the result of a decision?
Dr.
Robert Anthony claims that the secret of creating
what you truly desire is to accept whatever is happening
in your life right and to choose to be happy in the
moment. This means that you don’t need to go through
a long process to become happy. You need only decide
to be happy right Now!
Remember happiness
doesn't depend upon who you are or what you
have; it depends solely on what you think.
Dale Carnegie
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The movie, “Groundhog Day,” touched
a deep chord of discontent in people who feel that
they are simply going around and around in an endless
cycle of frustration and unhappiness. Whatever is
going on in your life, the secret to living an “Abundantly
Alive Now!” life is to choose to be happy Now!
For Your Abundant Success,
Kalinda Rose Stevenson
P.S. Click
to listen to Dr. Robert Anthony describe how to
be happy Now!
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