Happiness

So much is written on happiness these days, but little of it is as direct as this from Anthony DeMello in The Way to Love written some thirty years ago.   I love this passage for its truth and pointed delivery — with an undertone of sarcastic humor.  It is as if DeMello is channeling his inner George Carlin – but he would need to add a few expletives:

“Yet another [mistaken] belief: Happiness will come if you manage to change the situation you are in and the people around you.  Not true.  You stupidly squander so much energy trying to rearrange the world.  If changing the world is your vocation in life, go right ahead and change it, but do not harbor the illusion that this is going to make you happy.  What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head.  As well search for an eagle’s nest on the bed of the ocean as search for happiness in the world outside you.  So if it is happiness that you seek you can stop wasting your energy trying to cure your baldness or build up an attractive body or change your residence or job or community or lifestyle or even your personality….  The fulfillment of desire can, at most, bring flashes of pleasure and excitement.  Don’t mistake that for happiness.”