I should be happy: is that true?
You move totally away from reality
when you believe that there is a
legitimate reason to suffer.
~Byron Katie
This was one of my favorite quotes and
it sure reads quite good. I noticed
that it does bring some immediate
relief and joy and it brings lot of
“hope” for a ‘future’ where I will have
become so ‘wise’ that I will never
suffer.
But, I found that believing in this
does not do much more than to bring this
temporary relief, “hope” for a ‘future’
free of suffering [and possibly, ask me
to investigate, inquire, to ‘get out
of it’ when I find myself suffering.].
What I found is that much of my
‘suffering’ is simply because of the
idea… “I shouldn’t suffer”.
I noticed that much of my suffering is
because of the idea “I should be
happy”, “I should be peaceful”, “I
should be relaxed”, “I should be
joyous”. And, I noticed that *work* in
place of questioning this idea, which
was many times in the root of my
suffering, further strengthens it.
In fact, I saw that entire premise of the
*work* was based on the idea, “I should
be happy”, the very idea that had
caused me stress and suffering many
times. If I didn’t believe “I should be
happy”, in many cases, there was very
little to stress or suffer about.
Further, I asked myself… ‘Why must I
be happy?’.
I found that
I couldn’t really answer that question
and I found that believing this
thought, in fact… felt extremely
selfish, narrow and… kind of stupid.
I noticed that in absence of this
belief in “I should be happy”, my
unhappiness… whenever it occurred felt
far more ‘natural’, easy and ‘light’.
I found out that in many
cases, this ‘unhappiness’ was in fact,
quite necessary and useful and I was
grateful for it. I noticed that without
this belief in “I should be happy”, I
didn’t mind and I didn’t care for my
unhappiness that much and I wasn’t that
‘afraid’ of it.
Without this belief in
“I should be happy”, I was less
‘afraid’ of ‘unhappiness’ and I was less
‘greedy’ for ‘happiness’ and as a
Consequence…
I was freer to live my life
[which to me, actually meant “serving”
Life!].
When happiness came, I was
grateful for it. When unhappiness came,
many times, I was grateful for it…
and, even when I wasn’t grateful for
it… that too was A OK.
