Happiness and what we are missing to get it.

We only have one life. At least here on earth. And if we do what others want for us, if we do what others think about what's best for us, then we let our own life become theirs.

We might have thought of how we wanted to live our life before when we were still young and dreamers - become an actor, a musician, a teacher, a chef, a singer, a dancer, a basketball player- but our parents, friends, enemies, and even teachers have brainwashed us and told us their own scripts. Scripts that have been passed by from generations to the next, from their grandfathers down to you.

Be aware of this script for it defines what they want (or sometimes what they think they want), but not really what YOU want in life. Some of them maybe:

"Get a degree, finish it, and work till you get rich"

"Forget your passion; you won't get rich by doing that"

"Don't let anyone get what you are supposed to have, if you need to step on someone to achieve something, do it",

"Grab all you can while you can, you only have one life"

If you're familiar with these lines, then be careful. Maybe the reason why you aren't happy or you forgot what it is that makes you happy is because you've been so brainwashed by these scripts, these "traditional mainstream" scripts that you define your happiness BASED on how they define theirs.

Money is important and we all know that. But there is a certain point where once we get the money that we need, that's enough for us to live, we become satisfied and everything that adds won't add up to our satisfaction. Let me illustrate it to you.

If you were in a desert, tired, hungry, and most especially thirsty, wouldn't you want a glass of water? Now if I give you one, your level of happiness will go up from -1 to 1. But because you're still thirsty, you still want another one. Now, if I give you 1 litre of ice cold water, definitely your level of happiness will go up from 1 to 10. Once your thirst is quenched, your level of happiness is now at its peak. Even if I give you 1 gallon, or even 1 drum of water, you won't be happier. You might still want to drink it but your body won't allow you to. Because that's the work of nature. Nature only gets what it needs to survive.

Now, if I give you 10 gallons of water, we both know that you can't drink anymore and thus won't be happy about it, what will you do? If you have been brainwashed by our fathers, I tell you what you might do. You might save those gallons of water so that when you become thirsty again you will have something to drink. But what if I were with you in that desert and I am also thirsty, what will you do?

Here's where the confusion starts.

Your self, your conscience, the real you, will tell you to give me water to drink. And when you do, when you tap into that not-so-often-used subconscious mind, you will feel happier even if your happiness is already at its peak. It is because this happiness is not physically, it’s spiritually. And spiritual happiness is contentment, it is joy.

But our fathers tell us that if we do that "we won't have anything for us anymore", "we won't be successful", "we won't have water for us in the future", so instead of giving, we keep the water for ourselves or for our families because our fathers told us that "that's the right thing to do". This is where the confusion hits us. When you’re up there, sitting on millions of gallons of water, people looking at you, admiring you, telling their kids "You should be like him, he's rich and successful, he doesn't worry about a thing anymore", handing down their scripts to their sons and daughters, you might think that you’re done and satisfied - that you've done the things your fathers want you to do. You are now what your fathers define as a successful - a very successful person. But in the back of your head, you  feel there's something missing, you become confused because success is not what it looks like up there. In fact, it felt pretty lonely up there - alone.

Our fathers tell us that we WILL be happy - heck everyone else tells us that we actually WILL be happy about it. But we don't feel like it. In fact, we were happier when we were drinking that 1 litre of ice cold water than sitting on gallons of water while looking down at people who are so thirsty and desperate just to have one glass of it. The confusion is that we are told that we WILL be happy but the reality strikes when we are already there.

What we missed is the act of giving. Not just giving to our families and loved ones (we were brainwashed to help people but only our families and loved ones) but giving to people in general. We were taught to store and not give, but that's not how it works.

If you don't believe in me, try it for yourself.

Inhale all you want for 10 seconds, just take all that oxygen in and don't breathe out.

Eat all you want for 3 days and don't visit the toilet to relieve yourself after that.

What do you think will happen?

Not letting your riches flow in and out will soon take its toll on you. Giving is the important part of the script that our fathers missed.

How many of those people who pushed you to pursue a degree (that you don't want) actually finished theirs, became rich, and are happy and contented?

How many of those people who told you to marry a rich guy/girl so you will be financially stable and won't have worries anymore actually married one and aren't regretting his/her life and aren't cheating on his/her spouse?

Find your passion. Find the things that you want to do in your life without the influence of our fathers. Jesus found his passion and died for it without any REGRETS. That’s what will happen to you too. In fact, you won’t find death as scary as it is when you find your true happiness – when you do what you truly wanted to do in life.

Find what makes you happy, pursue it with all your heart and most importantly SHARE it with others. Let the blessings flow in and out of you.

“Nature only takes what it needs. The giant redwood doesn't take all the nutrients from the soil, only what it needs. The lion doesn't kill every gazelle, only what it needs. There is a term in our society that we use when we take more than what we need, it’s called cancer.” – Tom Shadyac

What is wrong with the world and what can I do about it?

In searching for truths in life I've realized that the more I eat the apple of knowledge - the recorded products of the observations and experiements of men - the more I have dived into the pool of self-growth. As far as I'm concerned, the understanding of life and its problems and misconceptions have been more helpful and more practical than the basic system of education (academically) that our society offers. Indeed it is fulfilling and I'm truly grateful for the opportunities that I've been given to acquire and study these basic truths in life. Yet (I’m ashamed to admit) I lack the most important ingredient - action, which is truly what the purpose of education is - to do it.

I've stopped pursuing my degree (for the third time) last year after a series of realizations. One of the reasons why I stopped going to school (not stopped studying, as what people think of it) is because I realized that I was trying to find out the solutions to the "problems" in the future that I "may not even have" while neglecting or totally disregarding the more important issues that needed to be taken care of - my present problems. These problems are the effects why we continue to have bent principles and false beliefs. We grow physically because we cannot stop ourselves from doing so and these false beliefs that we get from the (sick) society tell us that physically growing is enough to reach maturity. However, there is a more important growth that we brush aside every single day that brings us to our sickness and deathbeds with a frown that we forget and it is the spiritual (mental) growth.

I believe that our self-growth is the most important growth of all. Your family, friends, and even the television may tell you that "this is the right way" and they could be right. If they are then you are lucky, if they aren't (which leads us to false beliefs and principles) then you're one of us. The problem is "how do we know" who's (and what's) right? That's exactly the root of the problems of the (sick) society. How are we contributing to the sickness of our society? Our lack of awareness or rather our laziness to explore and to understand and to find the solutions to these problems - these present problems - contribute to the sickness much more than what we thought. We might, in fact, think that we are helping the world out of the actions that we do, not knowing that we silently yet rapidly destroy the own world we thought we were enriching.

I owe it to the mystics, to the scientists, to the poets, and to the people who have courage for documenting (writing books, making movies/documentaries, making audiobooks) their observations and realizations for the future people to read and understand. I also owe it to the people who have unconsciously given me problems, painful problems, for they provided me practical applications or let's say the "work book" to compensate what the textbooks lack. And lastly I owe it to God for making all things connect and reflect. Since I am a product of my experiences, in response to these people who have influenced me more than anything else, I pay it forward. I believe that it is a sin to be greedy. The lamp that provides me the light would be better used if I share it than keep it to myself.

I therefore, in my desire to help others (and also be helped by others), want to contribute to the society by twisting the corkscrew and opening our "bottle of awareness" so we could drink the wine of growth and be drunk in celebrating our birthday - our birth to maturity - with our friends. I encourage you to help me by helping you. I also encourage you to help yourself by helping others in any way that you can.

What's on my mind is what Eldridge Cleaver said in the sixties "If you are not a part of the solution, then you are a part of the problem".