Have you ever noticed where happiness takes place?

Does happiness ever occur in the past for instance?  

Were you happy yesterday perhaps?  And, if you were, can you recall this happiness of yesterday by being in yesterday, or do you recall it in the now? 

Yes, yesterday’s happiness occurs in the now, through our current memory.  Likewise any future anticipated happiness, which if it occurs, we are thinking of in the now, or if it happens, happens in a now.  (See also: http://choose.ws/2009/06/23/positive-pivots/everything-happens-in-the-now/yucel/ ) 

Everything happens in the now, including happiness.  All happiness happens in the now.

It occurs to me, that we can often create unhappiness by trying to live in the past, or in the future.  As we have discussed, this is impossible.  Everything we live, we live in the now. 

In trying to live in the past, the good old days of yore, we create a kind of melancholia, either for good, or for bad days past.  We might feel victim to bad events past.  Or, we might feel sad that a past pleasure is, well, past.

For the future, we might have an optimism or a pessimism about what may occur in the future.  We expect wolves or chest of gold behind trees in the forest.  Finding neither or either, we are usually disappointed.  Optimism or pessimism is attachment to future outcomes, a kind of expectation attachment.  ( See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/06/11/allowing/positive-realism/yucel/ )  These invariably lead to sadness.  And, more to the point of this blog, keep us from being present to the now.

All happiness occurs in the present.  To be present, we must live in the present.  Be aware that everything occurs in the present.  If we think back on something from the past, what ever the thought, “good”  or “bad”  or “indifferent,”  we will find deepest happiness in the now by being grateful for that experience.   (See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/07/31/quotes/bill-martuge/the-truth-about-gratitude/yucel/  )

Anything which may happen in the future, we may look forward to.  However, care must be taken to do this without any attachment.  Again, gratitude for where we are, places us in happiness, which only occurs in the now.  ( See also:  http://choose.ws/2009/05/01/positive-pivots/hello-world/yucel/ )

That is, while looking forward to something may feel good, and through LOA may cause it to occur, any good feeling happens in the now.  And, any attachment to the outcome, may well cause disappointment in some now, and will in the present, detract from a true happiness, which results from gratitude, in the now, for what is.

The key to all happiness is gratitude in the now.

Gratefully yours,

Yucel