Are YOU Happy?
By Meghan McChesney Gilroy
- Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
Many, many years ago my spiritual teacher asked me, “Are you happy sweetheart?” He was known for lecturing on happiness as your birthright, happiness as your purpose in life; he wasn’t known for asking casual questions. And he had a habit of focusing his intense and bottomless black eyes on you while you floundered for an appropriate answer. This wasn’t a question to be taken lightly. My mind began to whirl. Did he mean happy in this moment? Happy with every last aspect of my life? I busily weighed all the pros and cons of the current state of my personal, professional, familial, and spiritual lives. Good, good, bad, just okay. Or did he mean happy as in having a big smile on my face at all times?”Well?” he asked, “Are you happy my love?”
Finally, I stammered, “Yes?… No…. Hmmm. I don’t know.”
For several months he would periodically ask the same question: “Are you happy?” Such a seemingly simple question, but it pierced my nighttime dreams and haunted me throughout the day. I desperately wanted to be happy, especially since this seemed to be the point of his teachings and my studying, and yet the idea of being bubbly or putting on a fake smile didn’t resonate with me.
Eventually the question faded from my mind. Then years later a student asked me if I was happy. The question sent a jolt through my system. Without thinking, and with genuine joy in my heart, I answered “Yes, I am happy.” My response surprised myself until I considered it further. After years of personal growth work, my understanding of what happiness is had deepened, softened, mellowed. I no longer associated happiness with smiling all the time. I had learned to look below the surface of any question, to go beyond my interpretation of a concept like happiness. I had translated the question into a more meaningful query for me.
Yes, I felt happy as in content, authentic, and balanced. This sensation permeated through every part of my life. It was, and is, solid and lasting. My mood may fluctuate slightly on a daily basis, but in my heart I am content. I am living the life I’ve dreamt about even though it looks nothing like I envisioned.
That day my student pressed me further, strangely mimicking my wise, old teacher. “Really? You are happy all the time?”
I smiled at her and replied in an echo of the man who originally led me on my quest for authentic happiness, “Yes. And without a doubt, one day you will be too.”
So my question to you is, “Are you happy?” Please post a comment!
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