"Happiness is almost not worth talking about because the instant you
turn happiness into a goal, it isn't attainable any more. In other
words
happiness isn't something you can work toward. It isn't something you
can put someplace and overcome
barriers
to get to. It is something that happens in an instant. And
the truth
of the matter is that you can alter your state of happiness by simply
choosing to be willing to have it be
the way it is."
...
This essay,
Practicing Unconditional Well-Being,
is the companion piece to
Equanimitous.
I am indebted to Paige Rose PhD who inspired this conversation.
Werner's
quote
inspires me and opens this essay. It's
a quote about happiness.
This essay is about well-being. Happiness and well-being are related
but not synonymous. While searching for
a quote
on well-being for this essay, I came across his on happiness, the gist
of which conveys what I expected one about well-being to convey. It's
with a certain
poetic license
that I posted
his quote on happiness
in lieu of an unfound one about well-being. It's a
brilliantquote
- as are
all of his quotes.
This quote
foreshadows
linguistic
acts
becoming the
access
to happiness (happiness is convincing evidence of well-being).
When my sense of well-being ie my
equanimity
(look up
"equanimitous"
in
The Laurence Platt Dictionary)
is eroded (as it is, now and then), one approach I can take to
restoring it, is to handle the issues that contributed to its erosion,
one at a time. When I've gotten them all handled, I could say my sense
of well-being comes back. But look: saying that my sense of well-being
"comes back" doesn't tell
the whole story
of what happened: it does not "come back" because it never went away in
the first place. It just got momentarily overshadowed - which is to say
that I got momentarily distracted ie I lost sight of it.
The other approach I can take is to restore my well-being by itself
directly ie unconditionally. With the latter approach, it's not
necessary to first handle the issues that erode our well-being, before
it can be restored. Rather, by restoring it unconditionally we set
aside (albeit temporarily) each of the issues which eroded it. I can
cut out the middle-men. Restoring well-being unconditionally, is simply
a matter of declaring it restored. That's right: it's a
linguistic act
that restores well-being ... because we say so. Arguably, that
is the go-to way of restoring well-being. And the issues
which contributed to its erosion can (and should) be handled separately
later, when
interestingly
enough you will handle them while standing on
a platform
of the same well-being they once eroded.
So: one of the keys to the restoration of our sense of well-being,
calls for handling each of the issues which eroded our well-being. We
can do this. We can start separate projects to have each of those
issues handled. And
Werner
has also distinguished another really powerful option which is
available to us, the key to which is to entertain the possibility that
the way things are, exactly the way they are, with nothing needing to
be added or changed or handled (and you can do that too if you like)
is OK the way it is. And "It's OK the way it is" like a
possibility is prone to misinterpretation and even to
over-interpretation.
If you would only accept the way it is, exactly this way, with nothing
added or changed or handled, what will come to you (as strange as this
sounds) is an immediate sense of relief. Choosing it to be OK the way
it is, is the key to being happy
under all circumstances:
with it comes
a sense of well-being and the end to the struggle for happiness ie the
end to the struggle to be happy. The onset of happiness brings with it
many qualities. It is an
essential
ingredient in generating a sense of well-being. It's
transformative.
It's very beautiful. It's very
Werner.
It's very
Zen.
And it'll
drive
you crazy if you try to figure it out.
The practice of unconditional well-being is nothing more (and nothing
less) than choosing things to be the way they are. It is accepting all
things the way they are. Yes it's
true
I do have
my personal preferences
of the way things should be and the way I would
like things to be. But that imposes
my personalego-tistic
agenda on the way it is, so I don't pay it much mind. Look: there's
nothing wrong
with personal
preferences.
We all have 'em. Just own up to
the fact that they're outside the conversation of having it all be OK
exactly the way it is. And here, "OK" could mean it's right or good or
true
- and it might not be. In the way it is deployed in
this context,
"OK" simply means that it is the way it is. And isn't it?
That's the basis of practicing unconditional well-being.
