A Quote by J. Donald Walters
Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.
Related Quotes
Some people have a view of self and of the universe that obliges them to struggle for happiness, to yearn for happiness-"some time in the future"-perhaps next year or the year after that. But not now. Not at this moment. Not here. Here and now is too terrifyingly close, too terrifyingly immediate. They suffer from happiness anxiety.
This relaxation is the space in which happiness grows, and again I repeat: for no reason at all. It is not that you are happy because of something. You are simply happy. Happiness is your nature. Unhappiness is something nurtured, you have learned it. Every credit goes to you for all your misery, but for happiness, you cannot have any credit. It is natural. You were born happy. You were happy in your mother's womb.
It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it 'Jumping the Shark.' From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same.
As long as I am given the opportunity to keep performing and keep exploring in whatever medium, I'll be happy. As long as I get to spend time with my family, I'll be happy. As long as I can write in some form, I'll be happy. It is the essential things like that I equate with happiness.
And what is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time.
People misunderstand happiness. They think it's the absence of trouble. That's not happiness, that's luck. Happiness is the ability to live well alongside trouble. No two people have the same trouble, or the same way of metabolizing it. Q.E.D. - No two happy people are happy in the same way. . . . Every day brilliant people, people smarter than I, wallow in safe tragedy and pessimism, shying from what really takes guts - recognizing how much courage and labor happiness demands.
This is my perspective and has always been my perspective on life: I have a very grim, pessimistic view of it. I always have, since I was a little boy. It hasn't gotten worse with age or anything. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience, and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.
If we want happiness, I think we should follow classic Greek wisdom and live with areté. The word directly translates as 'excellence' or 'virtue,' but has a deeper meaning — something closer to 'expressing the highest version of ourselves.' When we're showing up fully moment to moment, there's no room for regret/anxiety/disillusionment, just a whole lot of happiness. Here's to getting our areté on!
Meditation is enjoying oneself, just sitting silently doing nothing: happy, joyous without any reason, because all reasons come from outside. You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy - but the meditator is simply happy. His happiness has no reason from the outside world; his happiness wells up within himself.
Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.
My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness is worthless; it depends on unhappiness. Bliss is transcendence: one moves beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both; happiness comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, 'I am happy. Peace, it is wonderful.' One simply watches, one says, 'Yes, a white cloud passing.'
It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.
Can any man say with certainty that he was happy at a particular moment of time which he remembers as being delightful? Remembering it certainly makes him happy, because he realizes how happy he could have been, but at the actual moment when the alleged happiness was occurring, did he really feel happy? He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried.
Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free.
Wise or unwise, who doubts for a moment that contentment is the cause of happiness? Yet the inverse is true: we are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. Well-regulated minds may be satisfied with a small portion of happiness; none can be happy with a small portion of content.
What we really want to do is serve happiness. We want everyone to be happy, never unhappy even for a moment. We want the animals to be happy. The happiness of every living thing is what we want.
Related Authors
Brian Tracy Quotes
American
Author
Cassandra Clare Quotes
American
Author
Frederick Lenz Quotes
American
Author
Henry David Thoreau Quotes
American
Author
J. K. Rowling Quotes
English
Author
Jodi Picoult Quotes
American
Author
John Green Quotes
American
Author
Joyce Meyer Quotes
American
Author
Marianne Williamson Quotes
American
Author
Neil Gaiman Quotes
British
Author
Richelle Mead Quotes
American
Author
Rick Riordan Quotes
American
Author
Robert Kiyosaki Quotes
American
Author
Stephen King Quotes
American
Author
Terry Pratchett Quotes
English
Author
Virginia Woolf Quotes
British
Author