Pathwalking 123
Pathwalking can be as simple as 1-2-3.
However, we have an amazing capacity for over-complicating our lives. Every day need not be a struggle.
Many of the things we find challenging are only a difficulty because we MAKE them difficult.
We are all hard wired with this need to have a system of beliefs. There are things we know, things we are absolutely certain of, and while some of these things are in fact solid and unchangeable, more than most of us think are actually malleable and can be changed.
We have responsibilities. Bills need to be paid, our pets and children need to be fed, we have duties and obligations to coworkers and friends and family. We allow ourselves the needs and the familiarity of fulfilling those needs to dominate every aspect of our thinking, and as such we forget that we have more power than that.
As much as it is important that we employ critical thinking in what we do with our lives, we also need to see the omens and follow the signs. The middle ground between these is the place where we can find, have, and walk the path we would choose.
In Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, we learn that the secret of Alchemy is written on a single emerald. And yet to interpret that secret, scientists and scholars write volumes of texts. Rather than just accepting the simplicity of a great complexity, we need to analyze and break it down and give it our own color, our own interpretation.
I have stated time and again that everything is energy. Some groups that work with energy ascribe to it light and dark properties. They see good energy and bad energy, and they strive to only use one aspect of it. George Lucas did this with Star Wars, giving The Force and its focused energies a dark side and a light side.
Energy is neutral. There is no light and dark, energy just IS. No matter what form it has taken, physical or otherwise, energy is energy.
We have only a minute understanding of this simple but ultimately complex notion. Science strives to find an explanation, diving into the depths of the atom to discover and identify subatomic particles to learn the precise how and why that makes energy tick.
Likewise, theologians also strive to find an explanation, but instead of science they seek the divine and look for the hand of whichever deity they believe in within everything. God is the machine, the maker and creator of all, and they seek his/her/their origin and purpose in making life.
No matter which of these you might follow, or not, the point is that we have this unique need to overly complicate our lives. I am not saying that there is no merit in digging into science or seeking a greater connection to the divine – however we need not take such complicated paths in our own, personal, everyday lives to find happiness.
How easy can it be? Once more, we hit a paradox. Nothing worth having is ever easy, that’s true. However, all we have to do is be happy. That’s it. That simple. That easy. Just be happy.
Now here’s the complicated part. We are inundated by things that will not allow us to find happiness easily. We have stress at work, arguments with friends and family, debts we cannot pay, people we disappoint, and so on. But worse, we have been led to believe that we do not necessarily deserve to simply be happy. In especial when we see those we care about having a hard time doing so.
Pathwalking is about choice. I know we cannot, and frankly should not, go through life simply feeling happy. Circumstances are going to see to that. However, how long we hold onto the things that deny us our happiness is entirely our choosing. If we dwell in sadness, if we choose to let negativity overwhelm us every day, it becomes harder and harder to simply be happy.
I am going to do something different this time. I issue you a challenge. Really, I am issuing myself this challenge. Find five minutes EVERY DAY for the next week to flood yourself in happiness. Use whatever means it takes to experience joy – music, comedy, physical activites or what-have-you, and allow happiness to suffuse your person for five minutes. Not a vague sense of happiness, I mean full-on, smiles and laughter and feeling joy and love happiness. I suspect this could go a long ways towards improving any given day.
Pathwalking is choice. We can choose to struggle day to day, we can choose to allow ourselves to feel happy or sad. We do not need to live in the complexities we have built ourselves, life can be imminently simpler.
Have you allowed yourself five minutes of pure happiness today?
This is the one-hundred twenty third entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog. Thank you for joining me.
The first year of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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