Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on ‘being more’ rather than simply having more.
Daisaku Ikeda
At some random moment in the Summer still pondering of whether I was procrastinating or not this year, I signed up for a MOOC. No, I didnt know what that was either – it is a Massive Open Online Course. Yes, it turned out to be MASSIVE. It started two weeks ago and 100,000 people are taking part from all over the world and the subject is The Science of Happiness. Just the the thought of 100,000 people wanting to explore what happiness means to them made me happy because it is giving me hope.
https://www.edx.org/…/uc…/uc-berkeleyx-gg101x-science–happiness-14…
“The Science of Happiness” is the first MOOC to teach the ground-breaking science of positive psychology, which explores the roots of a happy and meaningful …
What else makes me happy? Well it could be something as banal as finding just the right cake tin. What increased the feeling was that I found it on the Thursday Market in Fakenham reinforcing what I say about my home town: “if I stand there long enough, I always find just what I need”.
Seeing this beautiful spider’s web on a wet and dreary morning made me happy, if it hadn’t been wet and dreary I wouldn’t have noticed it.
On the course I was reminded that we change 1% of our cells every day. If I can breathe in those feelings of happiness, perhaps I can make that 1% really worthwhile. My family, my friends, my work, my environment all bring me happiness and one of the questions I have is how can I sustain it realistically. I have a feeling that working on that 1% is part of the key.
Many different meditation practices can also be part of that key and one that comes to mind is Loving KIndness Meditation (Metta) where you give loving kindness to yourself, then someone you love, then someone you are not particularly fond of and finally someone you dislike. Then you send the kindness out into the Universe. This meditation is becoming more and more popular and again that brings hope and happiness for our future.
I was very happy to randomly meet a friend on the platform the other morning and we travelled down to London together. I love the apparent “random” happenings in my life. Being with a like minded person for an hour or so makes me happy and he told me about this funny and moving Ted Talk by Sir Ken Robinson which I am happy (oh dear!) to share with you as the subject is close to my heart.
