THE ART OF BEING THE HAPPIEST YOU CAN BE
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THE ART OF BEING THE HAPPIEST YOU CAN BE
The following thought changed my life:
Last week’s article mentioned the saying from Sweden: those who choose to sing will always find a song. Those who choose to be happy will always find what to be happy about. Many choose to be happy though, and can’t seem to be happy. Why not? Because they choose to look for happiness in the wrong places.
My rabbi once explained that there’s a difference between money that G-d gives you, and money you work for with extra Hishtadlut effort, which is money that you take. Money that is meant for you, that comes to you without desperation, stays, because it was truly meant to be yours. Money you chase and take, can disappear just as quickly as it came.
The same is true for joy. There are two kinds of joy: the joy we chase, and the joy we notice. The joy we chase: achievements, status, possessions… can feel exciting, but it’s fragile. It can vanish overnight. But the joy we notice is already here, you just have to NOTICE it. That is the joy that G-d gives you.
Happiness isn’t hidden, it is overlooked. Take time to notice what you have been ignoring. A smile from someone you love, a meaningful learning session, how it feels to be snug under the blanket each morning, as we wake and notice that our body is working. This is the power of mindfulness. Happiness is not created by achieving more, by having more, it comes from recognizing what is already present.
When the Megillah says, “LaYehudim hayta orah v’simcha v’sasson vikar” the Jews had light, happiness, joy, and preciousness… our Sages explain: Light is Torah. Happiness is Shabbat and Yom Tov. Joy is Brit Milah. Preciousness is tefillin. The Jews then REALIZED what true light, happiness, joy and preciousness is. They finally recognized what they already had, instead of searching elsewhere. They felt at that time, between the first and second Temple, that until we have our Temple back, we can’t be happy! Only, after the Purim miracle they realized that they were connected to G-d through these mitzvoth all along, they just were not noticing it! Why? Because they were searching it outside of what they already had!
Children are born happy, because naturally, we are born with a mindset to be present. Children enjoy simple things: an ice cream, sitting next to a parent, being tucked into bed. So why when we grow up, do we find it so hard to be happy?
As children, watching our busy parents, we grow up thinking that if we want to be adultlike, if we want to grow up, we need to be busy! So, from our youth, we strive to busy ourselves with what is important and what is urgent, as we rush from achievement to achievement, with no time left to be present. We think that being constantly occupied means we are important. We fill our schedules as if activity itself were the goal. But a full schedule is not the same as a meaningful life. And that is exactly the reason why we can’t find happiness. We adults wear busyness like a badge of honor, and nothing blinds us from joy in life, like busyness does. Joy is found not by speeding up, but by slowing down enough to notice the good.
There’s a famous story about a man who dreamed of a treasure buried under a bridge. He traveled there and began digging, only to be questioned by a guard. The guard at the bridge laughed at how foolish dreams can be and said he had also dreamed about a man living in a distant town on a street with a funny name, and a very simple house, with a strange front door, who had a treasure hidden behind his own fireplace. The dream sounded ridiculous… until the first man realized that the house described in the guard’s dream was his own home. He returned home, broke the fireplace and found the treasure.
Joy is like that treasure. It is not somewhere else. It is under your own roof, right in front of you. The greatest mistake is searching everywhere except the place where it already exists. You can spend 180 days partying, wining and dining, with your best friends, having the time of your life, showing off all your wealth and achievements. Achashvarosh has been there, done that. He was almost at the pinnacle of pleasure possible in this world, until when he wanted to show off his wife, the beautiful Queen Vashti, one of the most beautiful women ever, and then, things went sour. He got insulted from her, got angry, and killed her. All the happiness of the 180 days, were forgotten in just one minute. To be never remembered again.
That is the story of most happiness we chase. We go on a high, a dopamine rush, and then, it is all over. All your left with, is a heavy bill, an angry wife, or a bad stomach. That is where most pleasures in life take us. Our brains are hardwired chemically, to be a pain/pleasure seesaw. There is no such thing in life as pleasure without pain, and there is no such thing as pain without pleasure. The more pleasure, the more pain in the end. The more pain, the more pleasure at the end. To contrast Achashverosh’s pleasure that ended in pain, Mordechai, Esther and the Jewish people, went from the greatest pain, of fear, fasting, and frantic prayer, to the greatest pleasure, מִיָּגוֹן֙ לְשִׂמְחָ֔ה וּמֵאֵ֖בֶל לְי֣וֹם ט֑וֹב. We actually celebrate Taanit Esther, the only fast we celebrate.
The rule in life is, that what you try taking for yourself, there is no promise that you can keep it. But what you give away, is yours forever. No one can take it away from you. Here is the shocking Rambam, on Purim, word for word. “It is better for a person to give generously to the poor, in Matanot LaEvyonim, than to expand his festive meal or send abundant gifts to friends in Mishloach Manot, for there is no joy greater or more magnificent than gladdening the hearts of the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the convert. One who brings happiness to these broken souls is likened to the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, as it says: “to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the crushed.”
Why is it that when one is altruistic, when one gives without any intent to get back, is he the happiest of all? Because a person who does this fulfills the Tzelem Elokim, the Divine image within him and becomes similar to the Shechinah! He resembles G-d, and cleaves to Him! There is no greater happiness to your soul, than that!
What does it mean to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the crushed? There is a girl I know, a seminary girl, who does kindness, the Matanot LaEvyonim way, to look where to give without expecting anything in return. On the way to Eilat, four hours on a bus, there was a girl from her Sem that nobody wanted to sit next to. Someone unpopular, someone who was going the whole year in Israel socially unnoticed. This girl saw her sitting alone, and she made a choice. She sat down next to her. Not because they had anything to talk about…they didn’t. Not because anyone would notice or give her credit… they wouldn’t. She sat there for four hours, simply so that another girl would not have to spend four hours watching an empty seat beside her and asking herself why. Think about what that means. Four hours is a long time. Four hours of conversation that doesn’t flow easily, four hours of quietly giving up whatever else the trip could have been. And at the end of those four hours, nothing. No applause, no recognition, no social gain.
But here is what the Rambam would say about that moment: that girl, on that bus to Eilat, was doing something divine! When you gladden the heart of someone who has been overlooked, who has been quietly hurting in a seat that everyone avoided, you are not just being kind. You are being G-dly! When another girl’s loneliness matters to you more than your own comfort, you are resembling the Shechinah. In a world where everyone knew who was popular and who wasn’t, she acted as though that didn’t exist. She will carry it for the rest of her life, knowing that when it counted, she did the right thing. Imagine the girl who when they call about her in shidduchim, they say, Oh, Chanie? She is the one that no one wants to sit next to on the bus to Eilat for 4 hours. Well, because of this chessed, of this girl, Chanie forever, is the girl, that someone wanted to sit next to, on her ride to Eilat.
No one can take away from this girl that good feeling, that she did the right thing, in the time when it mattered most.
