Secrets of Spiritual Happiness
Secret #38 -- Enjoy the Trip!
By Sharon Janis
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If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Let's revisit the idea that, in the eternally big scheme of things, this whole life journey is like going on vacation for a few weeks. During the vacation, various events take place -- some things go the way we've planned, and some things don't go the way we've planned. During and after this trip, we are the ones who have a choice of what to focus on, and how we want to experience and remember the time. Do we focus on the good aspects of the trip, or do we complain about things that didn't turn out the way we wanted them to?
This is an important question; because one of the most important secrets is that our attention is the key to our spiritual happiness. Whatever we focus our attention on grows - it's as though we are watering ideas and situations like plants, with the waters of our powerful thoughts. Therefore, the more we focus on positive, happy thoughts, the more we'll be invoking greater happiness in our lives.
Upon returning from a vacation, when you talk about the trip, would you tend to focus mostly on complaining about the challenges - the fact that maybe the airlines lost your luggage for a while, or the hotel room reservations had gotten mixed up? Or would you focus on all the great experiences you had -- all the interesting people you met, all the new cultures you discovered, all the great purchases you made, and the many other positive aspects of your journey?
Now, I'm not suggesting that we should be dishonest or pretend that bad things never happened. Obviously, if challenges happened, they happened, and can be considered as parts of a well-rounded vacation. We can still include challenges in a well-rounded assessment of our life journey, and we can include them in a positive way.
One way to turn almost any challenging situation into a positive one is through the magical elixir of humor. Humor will definitely help to make our journey more happy and fun, so laugh away. Laugh at the triumphs and the tribulations. Laugh at your greatness and your imperfections. Laugh at the cosmic joke that runs, like a stream, alongside the ever-flowing waters of spiritual happiness.
You know, troubles can be pretty funny if they're experienced and told with an awareness of the cosmic joke. If you just report back that, "Oh, we went here for a vacation, and everything was perfect," that may be a little boring for your audience. And remember that God is also always your audience!
However, challenges or unforeseen mix-ups during your journey can lead the way to having more entertaining stories to tell. In many ways, spiritual happiness is all about being a good storyteller - even just in how you look at the events of life in your own mind.
I learned this lesson while writing my first book, which happened to be an autobiography. What an amazing process it was to look back at my whole life, from infancy on, and to choose what to share with the world. During this process, I also realized that some of my most precious possessions were my stories. Good, bad, ecstatic, or shocking -- if it was a good story, it was a gem in my treasure house of life.
While going through a whole lifetime of events, I realized that I could write my life as the saddest story you could imagine, or as the most blessed one -- and it was all in the interpretation, and in which aspects of an experience I chose to highlight.
In fact, I can also tell quite a bit about readers by how they interpret and respond to my stories. Some have said, "You have lived the greatest life!" while others have said how sorry they felt for all the challenges I had to go through. Some laugh, some cry, and most laugh and cry together. Some thanked me for writing a powerful and intimate tribute to the spiritual path I described in the autobiography, while one woman actually attacked and accused me of trying to destroy our spiritual path and our guru by sharing my stories so honestly. I began to see that the stories of life are like mirrors, and that each listener's own image is reflected in how they view, interpret, and respond to whatever they hear, see, or read. Of course, this experience also helped me to pay more attention to when I was projecting my own deep-seated attitudes or feelings onto my interpretations of others.
While writing my stories, I also moved beyond judging specific incidents as simply "good" or "bad." I began to see the events of my life as an artist might look upon whatever they encounter. If it was a good story that brought personal growth and lessons, then it was good, regardless of whether the experience was pleasant or not.
I remembered that to an artist, even an overflowing garbage can in the alley could have great beauty. An artist might even want to paint the scene - with all the glistening reflections of the rising sun falling upon the garbage can and the wrappers, papers, and bottles that have overflowed onto the ground.
I decided to live life as a spiritual artist - greeting whatever I see with a reverence and appreciation for its hidden or manifest beauty. I decided to enjoy the trip. Not only did I learn to look at the past events of my life with an artist's perspective, but I was also able to bring that same artist's point of view with me into the present moment. After writing my life story, I began to see all the challenges I was continuing to go through as even more good stories. I'd see the story and the challenges, but the story first. Even when I was sad or suffering in the midst of various outer troubles, a part of me was taking notes and enjoying the show, while striving to discover and reveal the blessings and lessons inherent in each particular configuration of life experience.
Another great tool that has helped me to enjoy my trip has been to do what any good tourist would do - take pictures! If you are able to, I'd suggest purchasing a camera and seeking out beauty to capture with it. This is a great method for training yourself to look for beauty and to develop an artist's eye for God's grand creation. Technology has now moved forward to the point where you can even find digital cameras that never require additional costs of film or developing. You can just snap away, upload the good photos to a computer, and erase the memory card to reshoot some more.
