Elusive Desires: Peace and Happiness

For those who desperately seek it, happiness is elusive. Those who seek happiness want something more than they already have. And, when you want more of anything, it is greed. To want bliss and happiness is a greedy desire. To attain happiness is to accept yourself, your life and your circumstances. Happiness is when peace comes. Peace comes when you live without focusing on your own being, of excessive self-love, that “me” orientation.

Elusive Desire: Happiness and Peace

Two women I know are looking for peace. At this middle age, with several children they find themselves without husbands. Suddenly alone. Both are highly intelligent, accomplished women who had professional careers before marriage. One a corporate lawyer, the other an engineer. Both are similar, yet different. Similar in their loss, yet different cultural backgrounds. Neither know the other. I know them both. I am the axis of connection. They are two perpendicular lines crossing where I stand.

When your world has turned upside down and inside out how do you find comfort? How do you fill your empty space? While one is focused on her spiritual growth, talking about it, feeding it with symbols of peace like a “bell”, “a holy cross” or “singing bowl”, the other relies on substances to numb her pain, to fill her space. It isn’t really the circumstances that have brought them here.

Seek Happiness

Everyone has their circumstances. It is how they deal with it. And, how someone deals with events and situations tells a lot about their strength of character and state of mind. Both are trying to help themselves and one is more concerning than the other. While one needs to overcome her character traits like greed and possession-oriented nature, the other is trying to lose her pain by numbing herself. I don’t worry about the former because she is very confident of how much she knows about spiritualism and knows the motions to go through. I am worried about the latter because everyone once close to her has distanced themselves from her and I fear one day she will not be heard from again.