Being happy, in love, and married? Of course it happens. I think I might be an example. Not all the time, not under all circumstances, but most of the time. You and I are similar in that these are also three important goals for me. I would add a forth one though - being at peace with myself. <p>A lesson that took me most of my 27 years of marriage to learn is that while the feeling of happiness, love and at peace are all related, they are totally exclusive of being married. My marriage does not bring me real happiness nor does it make me unhappy. Only I do. Sometimes external events do trigger a feeling of happiness, but it is because of the way I react, not the event. It is all in my mind. <p>We grow up with our parents doing things to make us happy (birthday parties, gifts, etc)and come to believe that other peoples actions are SUPPOSED to create or destroy happiness. This is further enforced when we get married by the special little things our spouses do for us from time to time. The little peck on the cheek or the kind words that TRIGGER feelings of happiness. But we fail to really look inside ourselves and try to understand WHY they make us happy. Instead we attribute the feeling to the event. I will talk more about the real reason latter. <p>Associating the feeling of happiness with these external events makes us slaves to them. They are like drugs, shallow and un-sustainable. The peck on the cheek is great today, nice tomorrow, ho hum by the weekend and outrageous if it is forgotten once next week. When we allow ourselves to become dependent on these external sources for happiness we become addicts, take what we have for granted and always crave for more. We feel powerless to control out happiness because we have given that power away – like the drug addict believing that the addiction cannot be stopped. We have to get our next fix.<p>The craving becomes so strong that we sell out true love just to get more. That is, we start to use love as a bargaining chip – we give it conditionally. We give love to our spouse WHEN they do something that makes us happy. We withhold love when they disappoint us. This cycle leads to a complete breakdown of our ability to find true happiness and love. <p>At one point in my life I decided that I had enough of this cycle and really wanted to change. An article by Steven Covey inspired me to explore myself, learn more about what really makes me happy and set a plan to live differently. <p>Love, I discovered, is a verb. We have all heard that before, but I never really understood its significance before. I often thought of love as a feeling. To feel love towards someone. But That feeling isn't love - it is caring, passion and admiration. <p>Love is the spirit in which we do things for/to other people. Every time we do something we can do it out of ambition, fear or love. Those are our choices. If we chose to do it out of love, then it makes us feel loving. If we choose to do it out of ambition, it makes us feel admired (ego). If we do it out of fear it makes us feel violated, resentful. It doesn't matter what the action is. We can choose to be motivated by any of these three attitudes. <p>Hence, love is a choice. Do everything you do with love in your heart and you will feel love. It is as simple, and as difficult as that. Choosing to do things out of love required a lot of re-training. Loosing old paradigms and adopting new ones. It required letting go of the past and the future and making my choices based on the moment. Fear and ambition cannot motivate us in the moment, they only motivate us when we think about the future. <p>Similarly, Happiness is a choice. When people say they are unhappy it is almost always the result of an expectation not being met. When they say they are happiest is usually when something unexpected and pleasant happens. When pleasant things happen which are expected, it doesn’t create happiness, just a sense of accomplishment in being able to predict the outcome. <p>The lesson is that expectations and happiness are inversely related. The more we expect, the less happy we are. The less we expect, the happier we will be. Anytime we create an expectation in our mind, we set ourselves up to be unhappy. Expectations come from trying to predict or imagine the future. I clean the house, put out some candles and turn on some soft music imagining that my W will be impressed and maybe we’ll even have a little nookie. But instead, she comes home, flops on the couch and turns on the TV. I become disappointed and unhappy. Not because of her behaviour (she is tired and its perfectly understandable) but because I set myself up to be. The only possible positive outcome that could occur from my imagined response was having my expectation met. It wouldn't make me happy, just in control. <p>Real happiness is achieved by living in the moment. It involves retraining my mind to stop dreaming up expectations or forcing things to happen. Instead I need to embrace what IS happening - smell the roses so to speak.<p>So now I prepare the house so that I will feel at peace with myself. Doing this will HELP me help my W feel relaxed and at peace after she gets home form a hard evening at work. When she does come in and flop on the couch, that is OK because I can still help her feel at peace. My efforts were not wasted. They were for me. Being relaxed allows me to focus on her. I will turn the music off and giver her a massage instead. Embracing the moment, the way things are, without creating expectations of what they SHOULD be. Do you see the difference? <p>Marriage fits into this picture in the form of an institution. Marriage is the institution where we learn to love and be happy. We are all students and thus, are bound to fail or make mistakes along the way. That is how we learn. I have not always been a loving spouse or even a very lovable one. Neither has my W. Sometimes we are both so whacked that we have seriously considered throwing in the towel. But we didn't. We kept opened our minds to learn from our experiences instead of resenting them. We opened our hearts to acting out of love, rather than closing them out of fear. We learned to be each others coach and mentor rather than a useful appendage. We share the lessons and do the homework together. <p>Sometimes, we are even our best teachers. It is when we feel fear that learn courage. Marriage offers many opportunities to experience fear. Fear of being rejected, fear of losing face, fear of being trapped in an unhappy life. Marriage makes us face these fears and develop the courage to challenge them like a child looking under the bed at night. <p>Sometimes the lessons are painful. So painful that we get angry or act miserably. That's OK. With the pain comes courage or sometimes another expectation (barrier to happiness) being broken. Console your spouses wounded soul, validate the anger, Love the unlovable and his/her pain will melt into tears of joy.
Life is a journey. Don't focus on what is ahead of you on the path. Keep your eyes open for the flowers and beauty that are right at your feet. There is where you will get everything you really want.<p>[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: Happy_Hus ]</p>
