The Secret Of Happiness Is Relationship
Why are we living? What have we come here for? Every day we hear questions about the aim and purpose of our lives. And most of us continuously search for answers. How can we find happiness? That is one more question forcing us to search for its answer every day. What if the answer to those questions is straightforward? What if all those questions are just about ONE thing? Relationship. The secret of happiness is elucidated in the clear and inspiring voice of Masami Sato in the following excerpt of her book, ONE.
What are we looking for?
There are many things we do in our life.
Still, have we ever considered why we do what we are doing? What in fact are we searching for?
The world is a confluence of millions of people of all continents, races, religions, and ideologies, doing different things. They look different and also act in different ways. All of us have different interests and each have a different viewpoint. We converse differently using different languages. We have different emotions and desires.
Still, if there could be ONE thing that we are ALL trying to get, what would that thing be?
As I travelled around the world, I often asked people a simple question, “What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?”
At first, it seemed everyone was looking for different things as they randomly said, “Good job”, “My own house”, “A nice partner”, “A loving family”, “A soul mate”, “More money”, “Wealth”. “Freedom”, “Peace of mind”, “A life purpose” There were many more answers.
I did notice that some of these requirements were of a more earthly nature while others were of a permanent nature. Earthly desires are those that we want because we do not yet have it, or think that we do not yet have it. As against this, permanent desires are not about getting things we do not have. It is about a ‘feeling’ that we yearn for, so that it does not come to an end, whatever we get or accomplish at every moment or our lives.
If we take off the temporal desires from the list and look only at the permanent desires, it is clear that all we want is to continue experiencing positive feelings like exhilaration, enjoyment, encouragement, motivation, kindness, love, happiness etc. – in another way, we want to remain happy.
Contentment
Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.
The life that we are living is a mystery. We all may love it in one way or another. We may also disapprove of it in different ways. We may ask questions about it. We may value it immensely. Or we may just have it, in a nonchalant manner. But what exactly is the purpose of our life? What if the very truth of our existence is about to be revealed? What if this truth really brings us happiness and satisfaction when we discover it?
What if the essence of the aim of our lives, and its joys, is as simple as this:
It is all about connection.
Relationship is everything
Everything depends on bonding. All things are part of some other things. A look at our own lives would say it all. Then we will begin to see the real purpose of life.
Why do we do something, ANYTHING in life as human beings?
It is simply because we want to connect more and more. We make friends to feel connected. We get married to connect with someone more deeply and more permanently. We create a family to feel even more connected. We go out to meet more people to connect with, not only to get practical benefits from those connections, but also to feel more connected to the world.
We buy nice clothes and go to a hairdresser to feel more connected to our sense of aesthetics and to our own physical beauty. We eat a variety of food to feel more connected to our sense of taste and smell. We dine out to feel connected to the people we share the meals with. We buy mobile phones and computers to connect with others and the world. We read newspapers and magazines to stay connected to what is happening and what others are doing and feeling. We study and learn to connect with what others know and value.
Every thing that we do is to satisfy the need of keeping alive relationships. It is our relationship to our own body that makes it imperative that we eat and sleep. Because of our relationship to our senses, we are asked to do things to satisfy the demands that body makes. If we ignore the demands that body makes, we have to bear the resultant aches and distress. And above our mundane needs, we yearn for another relationship – a relationship to our very existence – a relationship to our purpose. And without that connection, it is vacant. Just like the blankness so many of us feel when we have no relationship even to ourselves. That is just not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.
Bonds are powerful, and yet they are fragile and tender
When the bonds in a relationship lose strength, we go in for a separation, divorce, disagreements, judgement, and bitterness. It never feels good to lose the bonding. Still, it possible to be in love with someone today, and totally disconnected and bitter towards him tomorrow. And this change of feelings can happen just by the flicker of an eyelid. And the eyes might be yours or theirs!
When we feel disconnected
When we do not feel the connection, we start seeing problems. We start seeing differences and barriers. We start judging and criticising others. We magnify, dwell on and give energy to those things we perceive as problems. When that happens, we could even turn it all inwards and give ourselves pain and criticism. We cannot feel totally happy when we’re feeling disconnected from even one thing.
Bonding: the Secret to Happiness
What if we choose to perceive the entire thing in reverse? When we do that we understand this simple truth: we cannot feel despondent when we are in a strong relationship. It is simply not possible!
Try to feel unhappy when we’re feeling connected to the people around us and laughing and sharing wholeheartedly together. Even when we have so-called ‘problems’ in life, we can still laugh together and feel happy and positive when we are feeling connected. At the same time, it is very difficult to enjoy anything if we’re not feeling connected.
Connection: Our Life
Bonding is the core of all things. That is what life is about. Bonding.
Everything is a mere collection of smaller parts. Everything connects together to form a greater unit; like our bodies are collections of smaller parts, organs, cells, atoms and molecules.
Our acts and options also is an expression of the need for a relationship. We are meant to continuously find out ways to relate to each other and to a higher objective.
Bonding and Religion
Some of us have opted to become a part of different religious systems to feel better related to each other. The relationship that we yearn to build could be to God. It could be to those who share the same belief system. When there is the sharing of a similar conviction, there is a stronger relationship within that group. More bestowing on each other takes place among people who feel related to each other.
Bonding and Business
Many people begin an enterprise to feel better bonded to themselves by being in control of their fate. But often in the entrepreneurial world, we end up being more and more segregated especially when we start viewing other ventures as contenders, staff as instruments and customers as a money flow. But the basic point of why we got into the venture was to feel the power of that bonding. So, why do we need to fashion that disconnection at all? May be in the perfect world, all business ventures worked differently, but hand in hand.
Relationship and Wars
Some of us even create arguments or wars to experience some sense of ‘victory’ or supposedly a greater sense of security and significance. But ironically, this rebounds. The moment we ‘win’ the battle, we are actually more disconnected from others. We now need more security to protect ourselves from being attacked by others. We somehow end up being more insecure and afraid. We can’t laugh at this because it actually happens to almost every one of us in different ways.
It may be the differences of opinion we have with people around us. It may be the wrong conclusions we reach at when we decide another person is wrong. When we want to be the only person to triumph, it will not be a victory in the true sense of the word – there would be no bonding. We can only rejoice when we succeed in unison. Then we feel the strong bond.
Despite the myriad ways in which we communicate our wants, everything we do is to fulfil the longing we have to feel and have strong bonds.
The full sense of a bonding is realized only through our heart. We can bond with anybody when we are truly concerned about them and feeling that bond with them. If we are conscious of this, giving life to that required state of mind is really easy, uncomplicated and a pleasure. Then we would actually feel more delight and joy.
Life is just like a game. We experience things and do things in a game but fundamentally, the aim of any game is to enjoy. It is not about doing things or having things. When the game finally ends, the winners are only the ones who enjoyed the game. Not the ones who had more at the end. The results and outcomes of a game we play don’t affect our true life. But if we lost all our friends to play with during a game just because we wanted to be the winner in this round, would it lead us to the real winning game?
It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.
We have no idea when this game began and when it would be over, all that we know is that it commenced in the past and that it will be over one day. When finally the umpire blows the whistle to stop the game, we can simply say, “Wow, it was a lot of fun. Let us play once again!”
In this game called life, the aim of the game is to ‘connect’. We can keep connecting until we all become one. It is the only way to continuously feel connected to our purpose-sense of happiness and joy. We cannot feel disconnected to anything or deny and judge even one thing if we are to achieve the state of total connection.
Life is as uncomplicated as that. There is just ONE secret.
And the secret is to connect.
To become ONE.
To relish.
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