TOW: Putting It Out there.

What's that? You don't remember when the last time something interesting happened in your life?



Me neither. I keep waiting...and WAITING. I mean, people! C'mon! I can have a meal ready in 2 and a half minutes but I can't get any excitement in my life? Why doesn't excitement just walk up to ME? I mean, FIND me already!!!



The Dalai Lama writes and speaks a lot about happiness, which I equivocate with leading 'an exciting life'. While I am not an avid fan, someone did say something aboutthe Dalai Lama and got me thinking about what happiness means. The Dalai Lama says (and is right, by the way) that we are here on earth for happiness. Not all of us are destined for it; but we search for it every single day of our lives.



However.



We only get happiness if we, in the terms of an old friend, "put ourselves out there."



That's because happiness is not an accident. It doesn't 'just happen' to people. We create happiness and build it through our relationships . We see what other people have, we see what we want, and try and make ourselves the kind of people we want to be. We can be fulfilled as human beings.



But we don't get to be happy unless we put ourselves out there. Because true happiness is something hard-earned and found with dilligence. We have to put ourselves out there, out in the wild, where our happiness is; being happy is a combination of our own personal inner peace and our desire to help others and create happiness in other people's lives.



If we don't say, "Hey PERSONAL HAPPINESS. HERE I AM. COME FIND ME." then we'll never find happiness. Because we never asked for it. We just kept silently wishing for it. Sometimes asking for happiness is the only step we needed to tak to be truly happy.



But we won't find it unless we put it out there to become a reality, in front of our eyes. Because wishing for happiness is a nice exercise--but putting ourselves out into the world to find our own happiness--that's when we really start to live.