Jeff Brown

There is No Unhappiness, It's Simply a Matter of Adjusting Your Gaze



Posted: Saturday, November 22, 2008

by
Inner Projection

We have the failing economy, failing school systems, failing marriages, but the biggest failure is in getting all wrapped up in failure to the point of letting it interrupt our innate desire to be happy and content.

Point: no one desires to be unhappy. If they could, everyone would go around all day being happy. It's innate. It's pervasive. It's inevitable. Everyone comes into this world with the happy gene, the smiley face, the over powering wowishness of joy. But at some point it leaves us. Initially, it leaves us when we get hungry, tired, or our brother or sister won't give up that toy we need. It's not the only toy, we've got hundreds, but we need THAT toy our sibling has. Why? It's human nature.

But human nature is one that desires happiness. The majority of people are happy. Look around. Day in and day out people go to work, school, and play oftentimes doing what they don't want to do, except for the play, of course, but they are predominantly happy and cooperative. The majority of people are not criminals, thieves, dishonest to a fault, lazy, or useless. Most desire to be productive and in this desire in this doing . . . they become happy.

But happiness does go. It goes when as a child we are molested by an uncle, lied to by a sister, ignored by a parent, beaten by a brother. Happiness goes when we don't make the team, don't make the grade, don't make it to where we need to, desire to, have to be. So we all know unhappy.

In these economically trying times we know unhappy. We lose jobs, homes, wives, husbands, and children under the pressure of all this loss. Loss of money, health, mental well-being all brings pressure, a pressure to lose our grip on happiness . . . or does it?

There are those who have little in the way of money, material goods, relationships, and more who, amazingly, remarkably, extraordinarily remain . . . may I say it? Happy.

How's this done?

There was a man who was being persecuted for his beliefs. He was a man who was often sought by those who apposed him and even those who followed him when things went bad which they often did. This man had eleven children and lost six to an early death. This man was dragged out of his home in the middle of the night to be tarred and feathered for his beliefs. He was jailed, shot at and persecuted eventually to be murdered by those who opposed him.

But during his short life time he did nothing but good.

Upon one occasion, he was asked by a legislator how he was able to get his people, his followers to obey him all the time. The legislator said that he tried all the time to get people to do things but he was seldom successful. The persecuted man spoke and said that he simply taught principles of truth to his people, truth of unrelenting right, and the people simply took that truth and governed themselves.

This man suffered and suffered greatly.

At the end of his life, a mob with raised guns, knives, and pitchforks sought him out at his home to take him to jail. The man came out of his home and with a mild countenance and steady hand offered it to each man in introduction, saying "Hello, good brother. To whom am I speaking?"

Was this man crazy? Or was he inspired? What was the source of his overpowering happiness?

His happiness resided in peace and the knowledge that those things of the world would bring unhappiness if his focus remained there.

There is a group of men of eastern origin who sit in circles posing conundrums, laughing even at the ridiculousness of one hand clapping or a tree not making noise with no one to observe. But it matters not, for they walk about town with a soft smile on their lips and sweet sway to their hips. For their gaze is above the horizon of political, social, and material gain to the evidence of the eternal that will forever remain. For their happiness is not simply earth bound.

In this day of trial, in this season of joy, it is a season that can only be enjoyed if transferred to that of the year-round, to the lifetime, to the eons and more. In this season, look beyond your footprints encased in the sands of time to His when He carried you in the worst of times, look beyond, look to the eternities and all your sorrow and worry will be left behind. Look to the truly inspired who know how to let it shine, let it shine in temporary, temporal, moments of trial put there to help you see the only place where true, eternal joy shines.

God bless.

Jeff is a Career, Life, & Mentor coach & CEO of  www.InnerProjection.com: working with students and parents using the proprietary Success, Design and Preparation system creating a plan to ensure his clients are of the 30% of college grads who don't waste 10 to 15 years or leave 100s of thousands of dollars on the table.

Prior to owning Inner Projection, Jeff worked as a computer programmer and in tech. support, but hated it enough to move from his home in Connecticut to do stand up comedy in Boston where he worked with such comics as Bill Burr, Dan Cook, and Billy Martin and wrote for people like Mz. Michigan who needed material for her ventriloquism act. He then moved to Los Angeles to do more stand up, but found being a coach & college instructor more rewarding. He's married with 3 children.
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