I have decided to be happy.

Against all odds, I have decided to be happy. This goes against everything our parents and ancestors have taught us – that we are striving for something or fighting against something. But instead of occupying myself with things like that, I’ve decided to occupy myself in what I believe to be a more effective way – with being happy.

It’s like they say, “You can’t ‘fight war.’ You have to exude peace.” Because fighting war is still fighting, DUH! And striving for happiness is really just “striving,” it’s not Happiness. Unless you can find happiness in the striving, find peace and enjoyment in the stress. I don’t know a lot of people who are striving in that way, though. Most of us are just striving.

But I’ve been focused on the striving long enough (my whole life!), and now I am focusing on the happiness. Do you remember glee? Perhaps from your childhood? Do you ever let yourself feel that? It’s still there. If all the other life lessons are still there, so is your ability to experience glee. But we haven’t learned to value glee. We are have not been rewarded for it by our parents (at least not consistently) or by our society, so we hesitate to share it or even experience it. Does anyone else see that that’s kind of stupid?

Science tells us we only use 10% of our brain power. What do you suppose that is all about?! Well, we learn, we are taught, to assimilate experiences in certain ways. As we get older and supposedly wiser, we STOP fully experiencing things in the moment. We say, “Oh, that in the sky is the Northern Lights.” Factual, to the point, smart. And someone says, “Wow, you’re Smart.” But oh, imagine being a child and seeing the sky light up in sweeps of red and orange and white, giant lines forming and gradually shifting, immensely and completely covering the gigantic sky from horizon to horizon. That is to experience, “AWE.” In awe, there is no conception of smart, of needing to know the name of something, or seek a reward from someone. There is no striving. There is only a glimpse of unlimitedness. How often do we let our brains contact a sense of unlimitedness? Perhaps that would take us up closer to 100% of our brain power.

And, dare I say, since we’re only using part of our brain, we’re not happy! We don’t let ourselves experience the part of our brain that is happy. Part of our brain IS happy, I believe, but collectively we do not reward each other’s happiness – and so we don’t encourage it in one another. We’re always told we need to have and do more to be happy. What if we told each other, “You’re enough. Just as you are. You will always grow and change – it’s inevitable. But right now, in this moment, you are perfect.”

What if we were gleeful? What if when everyone looked at us, it was with the gleeful expression of a child? What would we have to fear? What would block us in our striving and keep us perpetually in a state of it? Then there would be no strife, there would just be gleeful forward motion!

So, I have chosen my crusade: I am happy. That is my crusade. It is very, very challenging to allow one’s brain to access thoughts of happiness in this world today, when everyone and everything around you is full of stress, tension, dissatisfaction, and injustice. Maybe more challenging than any fight or attempt to correct any of those flaws. I know only a few inspiring people who literally want to put happiness ABOVE all their other goals. That’s why most people have goals – to try to get to happiness! I have decided to forge myself a short-cut, and go directly to Happy. I’m just happy. Imagine that!