Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.
— ATTRIBUTED TO BURTON HILLS
As Dee and I took our bulkhead seats on a flight home to Hawaii, we noticed a young couple seeking their seats across the aisle from us. They were on their honeymoon, very much in love, and excited about their adventure. When they realized they were assigned to sit apart from each other—in middle seats, one row behind the other—both of their countenances dropped like a couple of five-year-old kids whose ice-cream cones had fallen on the sidewalk.
The passenger seated next to the husband, a woman probably the age of the bride’s mother, sensed their distress and kindly offered to switch seats with the bride so she could sit next to her husband. The young lady was delighted, and the women changed places. As the kind woman took her new seat, I complimented her, “That was very generous of you to trade your bulkhead aisle seat for a middle one farther back.”
The lady smiled and answered, “I was a newlywed once, and I know how she feels. Besides, I’m going to Hawaii! I would ride in the cargo compartment if I had to!”
Her comment caught me by surprise. Dee and I travel a great deal, and we are fussy about where we sit; we make extensive efforts to get roomy seats on airplanes. This woman, by contrast, was in such a state of joy and appreciation that she was delighted to simply be on the plane. Her exhilaration was so great that she created a miracle for the newlyweds. She demonstrated that happiness is more about attitude than conditions. When you find contentment within yourself, it spills over onto others and may even create miracles.
As the plane hurtled skyward, I began to reconsider my fussiness. My happiness was conditional upon getting my chosen seat. That woman’s happiness was unconditional because she chose it. Even though the plane we were both riding on leveled off at 35,000 feet, she was flying closer to heaven.
We all want to get what we want, and we try to do what it takes to get our choices.
The question is: Can you still be happy if you don’t get your first choice? Have you grown so used to having what you want that you have forgotten your appreciation for getting it the first time? Do you take your good for granted, or are you grateful for it every time you receive it?
In Shunryu Suzuki’s classic book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, he underscores the importance of approaching every experience with a clean slate, like the mind of a child. If we become jaded and our threshold of need becomes too high, we miss the joy of our journey and the wide-eyed delight in what is right before us.
Joseph Campbell issued the now-famous advice “Follow your bliss.” One objection I sometimes hear to this maxim is: “But if everyone followed their bliss, we’d have a world of selfish people competing for their personal bliss and hurting each other in the process.” The answer is that true bliss runs deeper than immediate gratification. To some people, bliss simply equates with sensual delight such as playing Twister naked, with a group of friends drenched in Mazola oil. While that might be fun, a more mature level of bliss might derive from doing something that would make another person happy. To thrill your skin is one thing; to fulfill your soul is another. The act of kindness on the airplane created bliss on two levels: the newlyweds got to sit together, while the other passenger enjoyed the pleasure of seeing them happy.
There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values.
— Source unknown
Happy people do not demand a lot from the world, because their happiness proceeds from a place deeper than the world can touch. They regard life as a gift and celebrate what comes to them. Such simple pleasures do not result in self-abnegation, but serve as a magnet by which the Law of Attraction heaps more treasures at their feet.
There are two ways to ride first class: one is in the front of the plane, and the other is at the bottom of your heart.