The Secret Of Happiness Is Bonding

What is the reason for our remaining alive? For what have we come here? Day after day we are being asked about the sense and purpose of our lives. And many of us keep on searching for answers. Will we be able to achieve happiness? That is also a question that forces us every day to find out its answer. What happens if the answer to those queries is quite uncomplicated? What if it is all about ONE thing? Bonding. The secret of happiness is explained perfectly in the stimulating voice of Masami Sato in the excerpt of her book, ONE.

What are we looking for?
There are so many things that we carry out in our lives.

However, have we ever wondered why we do what we do? What are we actually looking for?

The world is a confluence of millions of people of all continents, races, religions, and ideologies, doing different things. They look different and also act in different ways. All of us have different interests and each have a different viewpoint. We converse differently using different languages. We have different emotions and desires.

Still, if there could be ONE thing that we are ALL trying to get, what would that thing be?

While I journeyed all over the world, I asked people a seemingly straightforward question, "What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?"

At first, it seemed everyone was looking for different things as they randomly said, "Good job", "My own house", "A nice partner", "A loving family", "A soul mate", "More money", "Wealth". "Freedom", "Peace of mind", "A life purpose" There were many more answers.

I noticed that while some of these were temporal, and more related to day-to-day needs, others were of a more spiritual nature. We yearn for temporal desires because we do not as yet have it, or don't feel that we have it yet. As different from this, spiritual desire is not about getting things we do not have. It is about a 'feeling' we look for, which does not end no matter what we manage to achieve at every moment of our life.

If we removed all the temporal desires from out list and only looked at the permanent desires, it is so obvious that we simply want to continue feeling positive feelings like excitement, enjoyment, inspiration, motivation, generosity, love, joy etc.-in another way, we want to stay being happy.

Contentment
Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.

This life, that we live, is a mystery. All of us like it in our own different ways. We may also dislike it in different ways. We may wonder about it. We may cherish it. Or we may just accept it in an offhand manner. But what is the ultimate purpose of this life? What if the mystery of our existence is at hand? What if its revelation actually brings us happiness and fulfilment when we come face to face with it?

What if the truth of our life's purpose, and of its happiness, is as simple as this:
It is all about relationship.

Connection is everything
Everything is about connecting. Everything is part of everything else. If we look at our own life, it says it all. Then we will start to see the real purpose of our life.

Why do we do something, ANYTHING in life as human beings?
 It is mainly because we want to bond more and more. We make fiends to feel bonded. We get married for bonding with another person in a firm and lasting manner. We raise a family to feel even more bonded. We go out and meet people to bond well with them, not only for getting advantages out of that bonding, but also to feel more bound to the world.

We buy good clothes or go to a hairdressing saloon for a better relationship with our aesthetical sense and to our own physical appearance. We eat all types of food to feel more connected to the sense of taste and flavour. We eat out to feel the relationship to the people we dine with. We get mobile phones and computers to weave relationships with others and the world. We read magazines and newspapers to remain in touch with whatever is going on and what others are doing and experiencing. We educate ourselves to keep in touch with what others know and value.

Every single thing we do is to satisfy the need for connection. If we're not connected to our own body, we don't even have to eat and sleep. Our connection to all our senses tells us to do something to satisfy the demand of the body. We feel pain and discomfort if we ignore the signals of our own body. And beyond our basic needs, we seek a greater sense of connection - connection to our existence - connection to our purpose. And without that connection, it's empty. Just like the emptiness many of us feel inside when we're not even connected to ourselves. That simply cannot be the natural way we're designed to live our lives.

Relationship is powerful, and yet it's fragile and tender..
When we can't feel the sense of connection in a relationship, we go for separation, divorce, arguments, judgment and resentment. It never feels good to feel disconnected. But we could even feel in love with someone one day and feel totally remote and resentful toward that same person the next day. The feeling can change just by a flick of a finger. And it could be your finger or theirs!

When the bonds are not there
When the relationship is not there, we start seeing problems. We start seeing differences and hindrances. We start sitting upon judgement of others and disapproving them. We exaggerate, concentrate upon, and give energy to such things that we see as problems. Under such a scenario, these problems might turn inwards and inflict pain and disapproval on ourselves. We cannot be fully happy when we have no associations with anything.

Relationship: the Secret to Happiness
What if we choose to perceive the entire thing in reverse? When we do that we understand this simple truth: we cannot feel despondent when we are in a strong relationship. It is simply not possible!

Try to feel grouchy when we have a good relationship with the people around us and smiling and sharing things completely. Even when we have 'problems' in life, we can still smile together and feel delighted when we are bound together in a good relationship. At the same time, it is hard to be happy if we do not have that edifying relationship.

Connection: Our Life
Connection is the core of everything. That's what life is. Connection.
Everything is a unified whole of smaller units. Everything combines together to form a bigger unit; the way our bodies are a fusion of smaller entities like atoms, molecules, cells and organs.

Our acts and the choices we make are the manifestations of our need for bonding. We are designed to persistently search ways to bond to each other and to a larger rationale.

Connection and Religion
Some of us have opted to become a part of different religious systems to feel better related to each other. The relationship that we yearn to build could be to God. It could be to those who share the same belief system. When there is the sharing of a similar conviction, there is a stronger relationship within that group. More bestowing on each other takes place among people who feel related to each other.

Bonding and Business
Many people start businesses to feel more connected to themselves by being in charge of their own destiny. But often in the business world, we end up feeling more and more isolated especially when we start perceiving other businesses as competitors, staff as tools and customers as a money stream. But the fundamental point of why we got into business was to feel connected. So, why do we need to create any isolation at all? Maybe in the ideal world, all the businesses worked differently, but together.

Connection and Wars
Some of us even give rise to polemics or battles to enjoy a sense of 'success' or maybe a greater feeling of assurance and self-worth. But this only boomerangs. The moment we are 'successful' in the battle, we are really severing the bonds with others. We are now in need of more confidence to safeguard ourselves from being assailed by others. The result is that we become more vulnerable and frightened. We cannot treat this as a joke because it actually happens to each one of us in diverse ways.

It may be the arguments we have with people around us. It may be the negative judgement we make when we feel something or someone is wrong. When we try to be the only one to win, we can never win in the real way-we feel disconnected. We can only truly celebrate the victory with others when we win together. Then we feel connected.

Despite the myriad ways in which we communicate our wants, everything we do is to fulfil the longing we have to feel and have strong bonds.

The real sense of connection comes only through our heart. We can connect with anybody when we are truly caring for them and feeling connected with them. If we know this, creating the desired state is actually simple, easy and fun. Then we would naturally experience more happiness and joy.

Life is like a play. We act things and feel things in a play but actually, the aim of the play is to derive pleasure out of it. It is not about acting out things, doing things. When the curtain falls finally, the winners are the ones who have experienced joy by acting. Not the ones who received more applause in the end. The effects and upshots of a play in which we acted do not affect our real life. But if we lost all our life to act in a play just because we wanted to be the best actor there, would it make us the best actor of the play?

It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.

We have no idea when this game began and when it would be over, all that we know is that it commenced in the past and that it will be over one day. When finally the umpire blows the whistle to stop the game, we can simply say, "Wow, it was a lot of fun. Let us play once again!"

In this game called life, the aim of the game is to 'connect'. We can keep connecting until we all become one. It is the only way to continuously feel connected to our purpose-sense of happiness and joy. We cannot feel disconnected to anything or deny and judge even one thing if we are to achieve the state of total connection.

Life is as uncomplicated as that. There is just ONE secret.
And the secret is to establish a relationship.

Salau O John
aka
T1

Prepare and Be Involved

Being involved in things makes us feel confident. We should be careful not to go overboard with that though. I know news junkies that I have jokingly told them maybe news re-hab. would be a good idea!

We should, like the boyscout motto, always prepare. Making preparations for what we are going to do helps us be in control, as much as possible, of the situation and not feel at the mercy of the situation, as if it is in control of us. This is a good skill to practice with your children as well. Issues will always arise, but if we prepare ahead of time by "doing our homework" and working out the best way of doing things for the situation ahead of time, we won't be floored when our "plans" go awry.

With children we can involve them by asking them questions like, "should we take an umbrella in case it rains", or "we'll be there for awhile should we bring something to do and some snacks?". It's ideal if we have weeks to plan, but of course, that's not always possible. Just as we hopefully laid out our clothes for school, and had our homework in it's folder and ready to go for the next day, we should have our bases covered in every day planning and have contingency plans so that we don't get overwhelmed.

Some ambitious people forge ahead and take what comes their way, but they would have an easier time of it if they took the time to plan a little so that they would have an easier row to hoe for themselves and for others involved in the situation. Going with the flow can be counterproductive if the flow takes us where we don't want to go! Lewis and Clark made maps so the journey would be easier for the rest of us! As we age, we can think more logically and can come up with skills to investigate, inquire and make plans. If that route gets blocked we have to be flexible enough to curve around any obstructions in our way and move ahead to the end goal. The best laid plans of mice and men....

We can bring others into our planning stage to find out what works for everyone, rather than trying to take the reins ourself and making decisions that are inconsiderate to our friends involved. We don't always have weeks to plan, so being flexible helps. Planning makes some people jittery. They don't like having such responsibilities, especially if they weren't allowed to make any decisions on their own as they were growing up. We make daily routines to get more out of our day, and planning activities helps them go more smoothly, especially if we're prepared for any bumps in the road. Getting plenty of sleep helps us to be able to use our logical thinking abilities.

We can make decisions easier on a full night's sleep, too. We only have so much time, and we should use it wisely to get the most out of it. We can plan activities and enjoy them if we are prepared, rather than obsess over what isn't going right for us. It will make this easier on your children, too, if you teach them planning skills to use in their future.

If you plan your reality, it's easier to create it!

What do you want to do with your day?

Until next time on this blog,

YOU’VE GOT IT
Everybody’s got potentials
Check out which is yours
When you know your ability
Then you’ll have agility
When you find your responsibility
Then you’ll feel responsible
This is not poetic justice

But the truth from true critic
Never say it’s over
When it’s only the beginning
You have a goal to achieve
Before your time

Never try the short cuts
It’s sometimes a way backward
Time and tide may not wait
Only if you wait will you know
Just be yourself
Salau O John©