My Books
Happiness – My Choice
When someone asks me why I’m so happy, I answer, because I am not unhappy. This reply is not just an exercise in semantics, but rather the elucidation of the very essence of my happiness, a state of being which seeks to avoid unhappiness. I was born happy and was a typical cheerful, playful child, but somewhere along the way that changed. At that point, it became my responsibility to un-learn unhappiness. Everyone is responsible for his or her own happiness and that includes you. No one can make you happy, and no one can make you unhappy. You might say, “Sure, Wendy, but you don’t know the people with whom I work or you don’t know my family members or you can’t imagine the amount of stress in my life. How can I be happy when all of it is driving me crazy?”
You can, because the truth is that you are only using these people or situations as excuses not to be happy; perhaps because you don’t think you are worthy of happiness. After all, there is so much misery in the world, how can anyone be happy when people are hungry and dying? Suffering along with others who are suffering doesn’t help them at all. In fact, it only makes the situation worse, by adding one more victim to the list.
Feeling sorry for others only increases their victimization which adds to their suffering. If you want be of assistance, focus on the solution to their suffering and visualize a time when they will not be in their current situation. Imagine they are living a happy, healthy life. In doing so, you are sending them positive energy, which will attract more positive energy. In addition, why are you focusing on people who are suffering? I am not suggesting we should ignore them, but why not envision a world where people are not suffering? When you are happy, you see the world from a holistic point of view, consisting of infinite situations and possibilities for everyone. Think of a world with no suffering, and that is the image and reality you will create.
Are you afraid to be happy because you choose to remain unhappy rather than change? Are you in the habit of saying, “With my luck….?” Every time you say, “With my luck…” you are not living with faith and trust and you are increasing the chance of attracting whatever it is you don’t want. There is no such thing as luck anyway. You create your reality, both positive and negative. The choice is yours.
Another excuse for not being happy is that you don’t believe in happiness. You don’t see anyone who is happy and to you it is just a pipe dream. You don’t even know what it means. Even if nobody else is happy, why should you follow? When I was a child and tried to convince my mother to allow me to do what other kids were doing she would say, “If everyone jumps off the George Washington Bridge, are you going to follow?”
Remember, you were happy and you forgot how to be so. We live in a world where we have the opportunity to be happy. Feeling sorry for yourself* and being miserable is just plain arrogance. I have heard these excuses and that is just what they are. We are supposed to be happy. Did you get that? We are meant to be happy.
From ‘Do You Want to Be Happy NOW?’ by Wendy Ann Zellea
Desire – What Do You Love
We are taught to not be ourselves from the time we are very young. What we must do when we become adults is say what we want. When you want to say no, then say it and when you want to say yes, say that as well. You have the right to say whatever you want. Of course, there are different ways to say the same thing, but the important point is to be honest with yourself about what you truly desire. When you were a young child, you said yes and no without hesitation. Saying yes didn’t cause you too much trouble, but as soon as you learned to say no, you ardently began to state your objections to all limitations that were being placed on you.
How wonderful you felt when you discovered you could say no. The world was yours. Everything was going to be your way, exactly how you wished. What could be better? All your little life people had been telling you no and now you had joined the no club. You could tell them no. However, your joy was short-lived. You listened to others when they said no, but the same result was not achieved when you said no back. In fact, quite the opposite happened. When you said no, your mother and father got angry. You might have tried a few more times to tell them no, but after awhile you stopped. That was when you became disconnected with your feelings; you couldn’t say no, so why bother? You began to do what others wanted you to do, not what you wanted. After a while you stopped even thinking about what you truly wanted, no less trying to achieve it.
Then came the teenage years, when your desires began to re-surface and the choice was before you to continue to do what your parents and the world expected of you, to follow your friends or to do what you wanted. Almost all of us go a little wild in our teenage years, the degree being determined by how repressed we have been and our individual personalities. It’s the time of our lives when we have the opportunity to become unique beings or to follow the crowd. Those of us who choose individuality will be loners and those who follow others will have the approval of their peers and perhaps their family. The rewards of approval are diminished, however, by the separation we have from ourselves when we turn ourselves over to the crowd. The loneliness of those who choose to go their own way is lessened by the feelings of fulfillment that being connected to one’s self affords.
It’s our responsibility as adults to create our own beliefs. We learn the ideas of our parents and teachers when we are children and when we approach adulthood we begin to create our own truth. The teenage years are the testing grounds and the years following are the proving grounds.
Get to the root of what you really want. Do what makes you happy. Why not? Now you might ask, “Suppose I don’t want to go to work? Should I quit my job and just take my happiness to the grocery store?” No, that is not what I’m suggesting. Do you like your paycheck and the living it provides you? I do. So why would you want to quit your job and have no money? Most people wouldn’t even know what to do if they left their job–even if they still had the money.
The point is to decide what it is that you really want. Is it that you don’t want to work or is it that you want to do something different? I was able to leave one job, and start a new career that allowed me to maintain my standard of living. My desire was to work at what I loved, not just to have money and not have to work. So get to the root of your desire. Ask for what you want. Who should you ask, you ask? Ask who you think you should ask. Ask life, or the universe or yourself, but ask. Angels are waiting all the time to help you; all you need to do is ask. If you never try, you will never know.
Enjoy the sunrise…
