Searching for Happiness

You’ve got to love kids! This morning I was driving my teenager to school and I had my 2 youngest sons in the car with me and we were chatting. My 9 year old says, “Mom, next year I will be closer to having a new school.” I laughed because here he is in third grade and he is already thinking about getting into sixth grade.

We talked a bit about the next two years in his elementary school and then I told him, “Well Liam, just enjoy your time in this school because once you get out, you can never go back.” I went on to say that it is important to focus on every moment that you are living because when you do that, it makes that moment the best ever.

Do you know what his answer was? It’s really so funny. He said, “So this moment, sitting in the car is the best moment of my life?” I smiled to myself about the simplicity and honesty of children and then I replied, “Well, yes, actually. We are alive, we have a car to sit in, it’s a nice day, and we love each other. What could be better than that right?”

At that point he let out a big sigh and said in his truly happy voice, “Yeah Mommy!”

How often do we sit and wish for something more, for something better? It seems we are always chasing happiness, looking for the perfect moment when we will finally achieve that happiness. I have been guilty of this myself and I know that there will never be a perfect moment or perfect circumstances. Every moment has the potential to be perfect depending on your perception.

This was proven to me recently when I was in Miami for a conference. I had set aside a half of a day to be by myself and I sat on the beach for a while just soaking in the sun and then I decided to go for a walk. I walked about a mile on the beach and enjoyed seeing the sights and listening to the waves.

I knew I had to get back so I could make my plane so I decided to walk along the boardwalk on the way back. It wasn’t as nice as walking on the beach but it was more practical. As I walked along I was looking around and kind of wishing I was back on the beach. It was so much nicer there.

But then I shifted my perspective and I started feeling how the warm sun felt on my body. I zeroed in on all the sounds that were around me and I really saw the people and the things that surrounded me. I took a deep breath and got a full sense of the smells that were wafting around me. I got in touch with my senses and I fully immersed myself in the moment.

Do you know that it was like a surreal moment? It was almost as if time stopped. It was the most amazing experience, one that I haven’t even shared with anyone because I wasn’t sure I could explain it and do it justice. In that moment I was filled with the most amazing gratitude for that exact moment and tears began streaming down my face. It only lasted for a brief moment but it was powerful and showed me the power of living in the moment.

As Eckhart Tolle says in his book, A New Earth, “How to be at peace now? By making peace with the present moment. The present moment is the field on which the game of life happens. It cannot happen anywhere else. Once you have made peace with the present moment, see what happens, what you can do or choose to do, or rather what life does through you.”

I encourage you to practice living in each and every moment of your life and see how it changes things. Leave me a comment below to tell me how the experiment goes for you.