A Happy Life

I start my mornings with these essays by Jan frazier. She is a miracle for me. I love her. I have spoken to her on the phone and she is the real deal. Enlightened. Wanted to share the one I read today. Happy Thursday! xoxo


There is Nothing Wrong with Your Life

Jan Frazier December 25th, 2011 -->
There is nothing wrong with your life. Whoever you are, whatever your circumstances, this is the case. But — but — you say. Honest, it is true: nothing wrong.
You could say it like this: fixing all of the things that seem to be wrong would not leave you with a good life. A good life isn’t about nothing being wrong with it. It’s about it not mattering if there are wrong things.
How can it not matter? How does that happen? When you don’t rely on your life to make you happy. When you don’t let what’s wrong with it affect you. Because that’s when you get a happy life. A great life.
What makes a person unhappy is that they think there is a connection between the life stuff and their happiness. That is the problem.
But then you say — How can happiness come, if not from the life stuff? Where does it come from?
It comes from nothing, from nowhere. From nothingness.
You could also say it like this: all kinds of stuff is wrong with your life. And none of it matters.
What makes a person unhappy isn’t that there is something wrong with their life. Though this is what they suppose, that they are unhappy because of the stuff that is wrong: the lousy marriage, the inadequate income. The excess weight. The skunk that lives under the porch. The car that won’t start on cold mornings. The kid that refuses to do homework.
What makes a person unhappy is that they think there is a connection between the life stuff and their happiness. That is the problem. Once you get out from under that confusion, then it pretty much doesn’t matter how many wrong things there are, or how seriously wrong they seem to be. Even all piled together, coming all at once on the same day, they can’t make you unhappy. If they were all fixed, that wouldn’t make you happier. What a revelation.
This is the revelation. This is the good news. (What else do you suppose Jesus was talking about?) Who will believe it though? It isn’t what anybody expects. But what a relief.
Everybody can take a break from trying to fix their lives. Talk about relief. Instead of trying to fix the body, the car; instead of trying to get rid of the animals under the porch, the imperfect spouse — none of which will make you happy, even if you could bring it about (you know this) — instead, figure out how none of it has anything to do with happiness. Make a little project of it. Just do that one thing. It’s all you have to do, really. Figure out how disconnected the wrong stuff is from who you really and truly are. How far away it all is. Not even touching it.
This is equally true of the right stuff — the parts of life that are going well. They aren’t any more connected with how you are doing inside, deeply, than the wrong stuff is. None of it has anything at all to do with it.
Are you surprised? If you can find your way to the beating heart of who you truly are, you’ll discover it’s never cared a fig for what’s been wrong out there, nor has it even noticed any of it, really. It can’t get interested. Even the good stuff in your life can’t get its attention. It’s too content to notice.