When I was in my early 30’s I joined a book club. One meeting, I made the remark to the girls
that it seemed like all the books we had been reading were
filled with angst. “Where are the happy people and the happy
stories?” I wondered.
I was surprised that my book club friends all looked at me
blankly. “Sue, the world is not about
happiness”, they said. I was shocked. “Is that true?
Aren’t all of you happy?” Now,
this was a group that included successful career women. Many had corporate husbands with good
paychecks, lovely houses, and small children with nannies to care for
them. On the surface, every one of us looked
like the epitome of happiness.
Not so, however! As
we went around the room, one by one each woman confessed that she did not
actually feel happy much of the time.
Rather, they spent most of their lives fighting to navigate their
monstrous “to- do” lists, to keep their refrigerators stocked with food, to get
ahead and make something of themselves at work, to keep organized households, to
provide for their children and their husbands needs.
Every one of them was secretly bitterly disappointed that
their husbands did not love them in the way that they had once hoped they would
be cherished and loved, that their bosses and co-workers did not see them as
shining saviors for the companies they worked for, that they struggled with feeling
unconnected and distant from their closest friends, and were heart-broken to
find themselves physically separated from parents and families who often lived significant
distances away.
Their lives were a constant state of worry, inadequacy and
disappointment. Each one battled daily
with fears of rejection and abandonment.
Each one lived a surface life of success and happiness but underneath
resided a deep-seated terror that the gig was about to be up. Each lived with a terrible and secret fear
that their real truth would somehow rise to the surface, and the whole
structure they had worked tirelessly to create would shatter to the ground.
The truth is that when the lights go out in the middle of
the night and we’re alone with our thoughts, every one of us feels achingly
lonely, remorseful and terrified.
What Most of us Feel is Really Guilt.
However our denial of guilt causes us to run out into the world
chasing accomplishments, laurels, activities, possessions and all the symbols
of happiness. In reality, on the deep level of truth, most of us are simply not
happy. We feel guilty because we are
living separately from God. And clinging
to these trappings, activities, and illusions only moves us further and further
from living with God. It’s the pride of
self our egos cling to that separates us from knowing our true relationship
with God.
It’s by our own choice that we live in unhappiness. This
is because the “world” is actually structured so that we can be happy. There is
only one thing that we need to do to attain it.
And this one thing is forgiveness.
In my book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, there are many easy to use processes that will help you to forgive anybody and any event in your life, current or past.
Develop a daily habit of forgiveness and watch your life change from fear to love.
