Recognize Bliss
If joy hit you in the face, would you feel it?
Do you know what makes you happy? Could you make a list of 10 things? They could be anything–no, ANYthing. You don’t have to share them with anyone, but you need to know what they are. You also need to recognize when they occur.
For example, right at this moment, I’m somewhere over India in an airplane from Kuala Lumpur heading to Dubai with a final destination of Amsterdam–where we’re going to be living as of touchdown. I’m editing some of the writing I’ve done over the past several days but didn’t have WiFi to publish. I’m pouring out scenes of old Buddhist monks hidden in temples, noting down moments of realization of experiences of travel and the words are flying in front of me.
Let’s take a quick roll call:- Writing. Check.
- Traveling. Was far away and am going from there to somewhere else. Check.
- Kids in heaven: did I mention that we have unlimited movies and 13 hours to watch as many as we can possibly squeeze in? Bonus: they don’t even turn off the screens when we land! Check.
- Heineken: if they’re going to keep offering, I’m going to keep accepting. Check.
- Aware: I see that it’s happening and appreciate it. I’m stopping the moment and holding onto it. Somehow, I can’t quite calculate how this works, but it’s as important as the other elements all put together because if I didn’t realize it, it’s almost as if they never happened.
Recognize bliss, happiness, joy. It only takes a second. It’s like compound interest: it just adds up and makes the original sum exponentially better.