What if you didn't know that you are already happy?

Sand Art and photography by Benny Olvera

It's one of those questions that makes the brain grunt and back up a few paces, asking, "Is this a trick question?"

Seriously think about it. It's a bit like when you're sick as hell, barfing your guts up and you realize that months, even years have passed and your health was there in tact the entire time while you were busy complaining about other things. 

Or when some miserable SOB dies, and suddenly his wife who bitched night and day about him, has nothing but nice things to say about him?

The perpetual pursuit of happiness seems like a symptomatic plague of privilege. The easier our lives become the more we suffer from invisible plight. The more money we throw at self help, escapism, and "Fix me" snake oil remedies, and the more frustrated we become.

Is it only in hindsight, looking back on photos, recounting the good ole days that we realize how happy we were?

Yesterday I was driving in a rain storm. My 19 yr old son in the front seat shouts, "Mom I don't think this guy is gonna stop!" 

I hit my brakes just in time to avoid being broadsided by the black blazer speeding through the stop sign. We came literally inches from smashing into it. With my hands tingling and my heart pounding, I pulled over to devote all of my attention to just breathing.

The litany of petty customary complaints that sully my first world perspective fell away instantly in the stark reality of life's fragility. Flashes of what it would be like to be paraplegic, brain injured, or childless, shocked me awake. Problems? What problems?

Suddenly working limbs, eye contact with my boy, a family and partner that love me, and the blank canvas of life ahead was all I ever needed in the world. 

Happiness has been there all the time, like my heart beating whether I notice or not. It's a baseline condition when all my essential needs are met: shelter, food, water, and love. Yes I cover happiness up with concerns about business, parental expectations, political stress, and other drama. But when something like almost dying clears the bullshit away, all that remains is gratitude and the simplicity of happiness.

Last night my husband read me a beautiful reminder from Eckhart Tolle. Success isn't something that we attain by sacrificing and working hard. Success is simply being awake to the one and only moment in front of me. Making this moment the best one. Then whatever I am "doing" is infused and amplified with how I am "being". That conscious moment is success. These moments strung together like pearls make for a continuous life of success. Never forfeiting present life for some accomplishment down the road. (Ask any old or dying person, they will agree.)

I bring this up for two reasons. First this gives me a chance to thank my husband, Benny, for inspiring me to write this post when he asked the question, "What if you didn't know that you were already happy?"

The second reason is that happiness and success are often linked. Therefore it is imperative that we understand the true meaning of success. When we see it as possible in this very moment unburdened by effort, deed, or triumph, then we can slow down. We must slow down, let go of the all the ways we're shoulding on ourselves, all the ways were making this moment wrong.

Stop now. Breathe. Success and happiness are yours right now. See you've been happy all along and you didn't even know it. 

Can you feel it? 

What we give our attention to grows. I think I'll leave mine here for awhile.