HAPPINESS FOR ALL

Hello Happy Readers,

I am dedicating today's publication to my late partner Angela. Yesterday was her birthday and were she still with us - she would be proud that we are ALL about Happiness which she truly believed in.

Previously I spoke about what I called the Will To Happiness. I said we must Will It to have It. At the risk of repeating myself I need to emphasise once more that to WILL Happiness is to condition ourselves to believe completely that we deserve it and are also capable of achieving it.

The reason for this emphasis is that I have come to believe from both observation and study that many of us retain something deep within our psyches that prevent us from being Happy. Oftentimes this compels us to unconsciously seek unhappiness even when we ought to be Happy; even when nothing but the pre-conditions for Happiness exists for us.

One reason for this is that many of us are often discouraged from seeking Happiness by our peers or those whom we look up to.

For example, many high-minded or so-called serious-minded people often dismiss our attempts to make ourselves Happy as nothing more than an overrated exercise in self-indulgence. They even sometimes scorn attempts to achieve Happiness as a form of neurosis that thrives in the minds of pampered, indulgent citizens of affluent societies.

I state without hesitation that this so-called high-minded position is flawed. It is simply wrong.

Let's pose a simple question here to debunk this flawed thinking: Will the world not be a better place if more people were Happier than not? And the undoubted answer to that is a huge, resounding YES!

Permit me to take this a step further.

It is true that sometimes when we compare our personal issues to those of the intractable, virulent, enormous problems we see and read about the world over - our own problems do indeed appear as though they are nothing more than insignificant tiny droplets of water in the mighty ocean.

And of course many of us do fully recognise that there are people in this world who truly face the direst of problems imaginable on a daily basis. Sadly enough, there are deadly, bloody, mutually-destructive wars raging in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and in Africa - to mention but a few.

There's acute hunger and life-threatening famine, disease and malnutrition facing millions, indeed billions of people around the globe. There's Aids, Malaria and other killer diseases wrecking havoc and decimating populations in Africa and other poorer regions of the world. The Natural Environment which sustains and keeps us alive is being carelessly and irretrievably shredded such as the ongoing, disastrous oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico.

We also do recognise that the problems that some of us face in our daily lives do IN FACT pale significantly beside the enormity of the chaos, grief and strife out there in the wider world. These are real, pressing problems that represent clear and present dangers for countless millions of people and we COMPLETELY Sympathise and Empathise.

Many of us even go a step further and donate regularly to various Charities, Disaster Relief Agencies and NGO's such as the Red Cross, Oxfam, Salvation Army, Green Crescent which are helping to put right some of the gruesome wrongs that exist globally.

Also for many of us the recognition and acknowledgement of these wider problems oftentimes helps us to place our own problems in proper perspective.

Thus without belittling in any way the enormity of these Global issues - it is nonetheless important to understand that inasmuch as we detest these problems - they do not erase the miseries we face in our own lives. They do not make our own unhappiness unreal. On the contrary they may actually increase it for the more globally-sensitive among us.

Furthermore our aim is not to dwell on unhappiness. Our aim is to rather focus on Happiness for ALL. All those people out there facing the huge problems we've mentioned are also seeking Happiness. Not to have to starve, not to have to live through wars, not to have to send our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters to war, not to have to face deadly diseases etc - are all things that add to Overall Happiness in the world - which is what we seek.

To conclude for today let me say that we should not in any way feel guilty about wanting to be Happy. We should not for a second think that we do not deserve to be Happy because there are serious global problems generating unhappiness for millions everywhere. Rather to seek Happiness for ourselves is to add to the stock of Happiness across the world. And the opposite of this surely applies: To be unhappy adds to the stock of unhappiness in this world - which we do not seek. Therefore what becomes a Solution? It's simply this: LET'S BE HAPPY AND ADD TO HAPPINESS ALL OVER!

I will leave you with this: What we want is Happiness for ALL and More Happy People on this Planet means a BETTER and more COMPASSIONATE WORLD for us all and far less reasons for unhappiness.

I wish you all Happiness.

I shall return.