Mockingbird Karma: Is It Possible, Or Okay, To Enjoy Life When You Are Not Happy?

Good morning and hello.

When I was young, I was happy all the time. Nothing could bring me down for long. I'm not sure why I was so happy all the time, but I was. At some point, something changed. It may have been a result of some life-changing stuff that happened. I can't be sure. But at some point, I stopped being so happy all the time.

These days, it seems like I'm never happy. Maybe I used up my 'happy' when I was young? I don't know. But I don't seem to have that constant happy feeling like I used to have. Don't get me wrong, I still have happy moments. I can enjoy joking with family or friends, or laughing at a funny TV show. But when I'm still, in a quiet moment, I am not radiating happiness like I once was.

For a long time I wondered why I can't seem to be happy anymore. Why do I always feel subdued, unhappy, unsettled? Why can't I get my 'happiness mojo' back? And so of course, I felt like something was wrong with me. I mean, if I'm not happy all the time, there must be something wrong with me, right? Or maybe not...

I've been reading about Buddhism for several years now, at least. And sometimes I have a thought, a revelation almost, that I realize comes from all that reading. This one is: There is NOTHING WRONG with simply being, without happiness. One of the main precepts in Buddhism has to do with misery and our confounded attempts to escape it. When we just 'sit' in our misery, instead of escaping it, we get a chance to know it, to explore it. By knowing our unhappiness, we have the opportunity to take away its power. We can accept it and go on with life. Thus taking away the misery associated with the source.

The wandering point here is that we don't have to be happy all the time, and we cause our own suffering by pursuing a false happiness, or trying to escape a false misery. We just, simply ARE.

Mockingbird Karma: What's It All About Pippin?

I'm 52 years old. I still can't figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Perhaps that is why I don't feel all that grown up. I've often speculated, privately, that having children is one of those things that makes you feel truly 'grown up'. I'm not sure, as I've never had kids.

I saw the play "Pippin" many years ago in New York City. A place that I loved visiting with my grandparents when we would visit them on Long Island. My take away from the play was the line "What's it all about, Pippin?" Pippin was a young boy who did not know what life was all about. HAH! Even as I write that I realize, nobody really does.

I think we all have to figure out for ourselves what our lives are supposed to be about. What is purpose and all that. I've done some reading and so forth, I've cogitated on it a lot. I think the root might be

Mockingbird Karma: Waking Up Happy... Or Not?

I woke up this morning and, like most mornings, I lay in bed for a while in the dark, thinking. As my thoughts drifted around, they ended up at my day job. And I found myself thinking about someone there, and thinking they were a so-and-so. This is not a good thought pattern. Thinking ill of people just doesn’t help anything. Better to think of what they may be like, and to separate that from actions or decisions they make? I think so.

So I corrected myself gently, and turned my thoughts to the many blessings in my life. It worked better to put myself in a grateful mindset. So instead of dwelling on my job, and getting worked up into a negative mental state, I thought about life and blessings and gratitude for a little while.

I don’t always catch myself in time like this. Many mornings I wake up thinking negative thoughts, and they usually run away with me until I am angry or depressed or anxious. This is just another area where I have lots of work to do. At least these days, I have some information in my head that helps me see the difference.

How did you wake up this morning? Did you wake up happy? Do you struggle with negativity in the morning too? What do you do about it?

Love to you, love to all.