There are a few places that used to be bastions of silence. You could always escape and find calmness at the library, inside an empty church and at the local card shop.

I recently walked into a Hallmark store at the mall and, while looking for a card, began hearing songs, fairly loud choruses from a variety of different tunes. The latest thing is not just sending your heartfelt sentiment in a card... the cards now include songs! As I found myself humming along with the tunes, I realized what a wonderful world we live in. We can include in our multi-media, high tech bag of tricks the simple greeting card!

“I’m walking on sunshine, hmmm, I’m walking on sunshine, oooohhh, I’m walking on sunshine, hmmmm... and don’t it FEEL GOOD!” This flowed out of a 3” round button that sat on a shelf in the store. And, you know, I just had to press it a couple of times. The more that song played, the happier and lighter I began to feel. And isn’t that what life is all about? We all want to feel good!

The realization of this hit me. It was simple yet very profound. Why do we do anything? What is the end result of all our striving, achieving, working hard, pushing our limits, etc? The thing we are seeking, ultimately, is to feel good! Why do we look for good jobs? So we can have more money to buy things that will make us... feel good. Why do we seek the perfect soulmate? To complete us? To have someone to enjoy life with? To shower the love we have inside us on another? Why do we do all this? In order to feel good! This applies to every part of our lives. Whatever we are involved in has the element and promise of making us feel better. And from where does that sense of well-being arise? And how did we lose it in the first place?

Ah, those are the great questions that humanity has been asking from the beginning of time.

I believe we can go back to the very start of our lives to get some clues. When we are born, we are coming forth from pure positive energy. We are unconditional love incarnate in a physical vehicle. That’s why everyone immediately relates to a newborn baby. The essence of who we really are resonates when we see that little one, so pure, so innocent, so filled with wonder and love. We click in with that because that is WHO WE ARE!

What happens next is the little one becomes a sponge soaking up all the sights, sounds, emotions and other sensory input from their environment. They naturally gravitate toward joy and discovery and they also absorb other things not so joy-filled. After time, they are taught that “the world is tough, it is hard, a bad place” etc., all the well-meaning programming that authority figures give us in the hopes of preparing us for our futures. What if we had been programmed to look for the fun, the excitement and the joy and to squeeze all the good out of each day that we could? What if we had been allowed the time and freedom to explore on our own the wonder of our world?

I’m one of those perennial optimists. I believe it’s never too late to have a happy life. Wherever you are on the spectrum, you can always move toward being more joyful. It may be a stretch at first if you are not used to seeing life as “a glass half full” but I assure you, it’s well worth the effort. Because once you start to live life from the intention of “I’m living life happily-ever-after” it becomes easier and easier because, again, that’s who you really are, joy incarnate!

This sense that we are anything other than joy is what causes pain, frustration, anger, etc. Joy is our most natural state. Anything else is something we have practiced and gotten accustomed to. We needlessly suffer because of our “seeming” disconnection from Source, which is abundant happiness. The moment we make the choice to be happy, we re-connect instantaneously and we find ourselves walking on sunshine... and don’t it feel good!