I would be happy if...

We left the house a few minutes later than usual and found heavier traffic than we are used to. We sat at red lights longer than anyone likes to. My son, still half asleep, was not up for conversation, so I just looked around at the cars around me. It's Monday morning, not yet 8 am, and drivers are already frustrated. They show their frustration with unpleasant gestures, honking horns and aggressive driving. As I am observing this, the DJ on the radio starts taking calls from other listeners. They are calling to complain. One call in particular caught my attention. The caller said that she would be happy if only traffic were not so heavy. Really? Is that all it would take? I doubt it. If only...

Many of us have a list of what it would take to make us happy: a better job, a bigger house, a nicer body, winning the lottery, extra time during the day, quieter neighbors, compliant children, a vacation home, more friends, an understanding wife, a French accent. We cross items off the list and add others, making happiness unattainable. We make happiness dependent on outside circumstances. When we do, our happiness is fleeting...and it is not real happiness.

Happiness is a state of being. We are born happy. With time, as we experience our live conditions, we add on worry, comparison to others, thoughts of scarcity, distrust, doubt, suspicion, prejudice, defensiveness, dishonesty, faultfinding, guilt, rejection, resentment, hostility and a slew of other negative ideas that separate us from each other and from our original state of bliss. At any moment we can choose to go back to our primordial state. In other words, at any moment we can choose to be happy.

Today is a good day to focus on our oneness, on the thought that we are loved and protected, that we were all sourced from the same Spirit and that everything that bothers us, saddens us, angers us or makes us anxious cannot upset our happiness. When we remember who we are, happiness overcomes. Our built-in spiritual muscles are changeless and everlasting and, so, our happiness is permanent. We just have to get in touch with that place within where the ephemeral notions of the world do not matter.

I would be happy if...oh, wait, I already am.