What is happiness? Is saying you’re happy judgment? Aren’t you supposed to be happy in life? Isn’t life supposed to be fun?
As with all things in life, there is happiness experienced from judgment, and there is happiness experienced from non-judgment.
Happiness based on judgment is short-lived. Even while you’re happy, you can start feeling yourself miss it when it’s gone. You sense it can’t last forever. So, you start craving it before it’s even gone. And then your emotions dip when it is gone. You crave even more of it. Scarcity mindset takes over. Your sense of abundance becomes constricted. You feel separate from life, think that you need to negotiate with life for more happiness, that joy comes in limited quantities.
There’s no easy checklist you can consult to see if the happiness you’re feeling stems from judgment. But you can tell by your own experience. Everything derived from judging comes with its opposite. If you look closely, you can feel its presence. Joy comes with sadness. Gain comes with loss. Having comes with not having. Even wanting comes with not wanting. To want something requires you to hold the possibility of not wanting it. It’s a decision you have to make and at some level keep justifying. If you don’t stand by and maintain your decision, your judging would pull you into another direction, and the same thing happens. Judging takes up a lot of energy. And it certainly doesn’t sound like fun. But that’s life when you’re ruled by your judging habit.
When you come from a place of non-judgment, however, joy feels very different. It doesn’t come bundled with its opposite, because nothing is hiding in the shadows. There is no shadow, to begin with. You don’t fear losing it, because you know you cannot lose it. It’s always there, permanent and unwavering. It’s the joy of being free of judgment.
When you’re not judging, you are a participant in life. You’re not opposing it or trying to control it. You don’t want it to be different, because wanting it to be different is judging it. When you judge life, you’re saying you know better than life. You’re so convinced of it, you’re going to make life to bend to your will, by hook or by crook. Or simply by complaining about it. You keep resisting, even if all it ever does is make you feel bad, yet you keep judging because you know no other way.
When you’re a participant in life’s unfolding, the joy of living and being steps to the foreground. Not what you’re experiencing, but experiencing itself becomes your primary focal point. Actual events become secondary. They lose their power over you. Whatever emotions come up don’t get stuck in you. Instead, they pass right through you. You notice how tense you’ve been all this time, always in a state of distrust towards life.
Take a deep breath. Not only is this the end of the roller coaster of living in judgment, but you’re finally free to enjoy life happening. And life happening is all about letting in the fun.
How happy are you?
