Reflections

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time."

• Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
  American novelist

Aha! "If only we'd stop trying to be happy..." Wharton writes. Yes, indeed. The whole notion of "trying to be happy" suggests one is trying too hard. I think one is either disposed to be happy, or one is not... as in "having a happy disposition"--the "Count it all Joy" philosophy in action. But perhaps, if joy seems a bridge too far, we can cultivate the Pauline willingness to be content in the moment--"I have learned in whatever condition I am, to be content." Today, I invite you to try living without that nagging need to push the river in pursuit of whatever one deems would be "better" than right NOW.

It is easier to live with openness to an "emptiness that invites" when one has arrived at a place in life when striving to achieve is done--when one has become, and now is, that which one sought to become. And yet, that magnificent openness, that attitude of "What will today bring?"-- is a way of being-in-the-world that one can choose at any time of life. It bespeaks an awareness of the richness of life, the ever available mystery of each new day, the trust that every life will encounter both wonder and woe, and the willingness to embrace the whole.

So does that then constitute "a pretty good time?" Pretty much... if one chooses to see it that way. There's usually more "pretty good" than not, in most experiences, in most lives. Our challenge is to find the value in our every experience, to "look for the silver lining" as the old song suggests, to choose to see the "up" side, the glass that's at least half full, to discover in our every experience, the pearl of great price.

Happy Hunting!