We are as happy as we DECIDE to be!

Do you, when you look at something like this picture, immediately create a story about it?

The first time I traveled to Europe (Austria) I was married.  My wife and I would discuss how happy we could be living in this or that little faerie tale village as we experienced the beautiful scenes there.  We would drink our coffee in the little bakery and eat those wonderful plain bread breakfast rolls that were made fresh every morning, lathered with homemade preserves. 

We were struck by the smallest of things … the server delivered coffee to you in a cup WITH a saucer and in between the cup and saucer was a little paper doily!  Rich, room temperature, cream served in little silver chalices.  Linen napkins … Linen, in a bakery!  The server didn’t ask you every 15 minutes, “Will there be anything else?”  You could sit there for hours and no one brought you a check unless you asked for it! 

We would sit in the coffee shop/bakery and conjure up stories of the joy we would experience in the day-to-day life there, in that village.  The fact that we both had careers we were striving for in the States and didn’t know the language nor have any transferable, employable skills, didn’t stop us from talking about the dream.

 We just knew that nothing bad ever happened in these little villages … we truly were in love with a faerie tale. 

Now its many years later, I’ve been to Europe many times since.  I still enjoy it immensely but no longer do I see its villages as faerie tale villages … nor do I see life as a faerie tale. 

I am continually struck that my joy in those first European experiences was entirely created in my own mind.  I knew nothing of what I was looking at and yet, from someplace inside me I declared, “There is safety and happiness here.”  I believe it was because the authors of those faerie tale books I read as a child were from Europe and, of course, used these villages in their illustrations.  I was triggered by a past memory of safety and happiness and brought it forward to influence what I was presently seeing.

I wonder how many times I’ve done that with people?  You know, never really seeing or hearing them, but bringing something up from my past to project on them. 

It works like a movie projector, I think.  The lens of the projector representing our eyes, the film in the canister representing our thinking, our brain, our individual life experiences; we look out on to a scene or individual and instead of “seeing” them, we unknowingly project our own images, thoughts, memories, perceptions, on to them, as we would a movie screen, and then we sit there, watching our own movie, and behave as though we are seeing “Truth!”

In this unconscious, projecting state, I decided … just decided, that my views of the world were “accurate,” and yet I had no idea how I formed those views.  I was not “seeing” truth but instead, my perception projected out upon the world.  Really, all I’m “seeing” is a reflection of what’s going on inside me … my own movie!

At first glance, it would seem this “Projection” technique is a bit easier to deal with when we are being positive but I don’t think so.  What impossible pressure do we create when we say to someone … our lover, “I was nothing before you.  You complete me.  You make me happier than I’ve ever been.  You are responsible for my joy.  I cannot go on without you,” or any other “romantic” terms?  Whew!  Who could ever measure up to those accolades? 

It’s even uglier when we use “projection” in a negative manner; to attack or make someone wrong and you know, we make others wrong so we can be right and we just l-o-v-e to be right, don’t we?

When we get angry and attack someone, we are attempting to get rid of our own guilt/fear.  Anger or attack has no basis other than fear residing in the attacker.  Test it for yourself.  When next you get angry, see if the underlying, the botto

m most emotion, is not fear.

When I look back into my life, every time a problem came up, the problem came from my selfish, fearful mind.  It was created by self-cherishing thoughts.  

I am convinced, in order to achieve true happiness; one must give up the narcotic of blame and embrace personal responsibility.  

There is no one responsible for how you feel, other than you. Not your lover … not your mother … just … you!  

As long as we place the blame (or credit) outside ourselves, there will be no happiness.

Since accepting this concept for my own, I have experienced joy and happiness in ways I never experienced before …

care to join me?

And that’s just one man’s opinion.