Let's close our eyes.
Let's close our eyes.
At the deepest level,
All of us are looking for long lasting happiness.
A happily ever after.
And we have been looking for it for a long time now.
The promise of graduating from school,
Getting admission into the dream college.
Finding that most coveted job.
A girl or a guy of our dreams.
And so on.
We did find happiness,
Don't get me wrong.
We found happiness along the way.
In some shape,
Way or form.
That reinstated our quest for it.
And we continued moving along.
And all of us are here,
Which proves that we are very sincere in our quest.
That we do want to find this long lasting happily ever after.
But what if we actually found it?
Let's imagine,
Today is the day you're going to win the jackpot of happily ever after,
Long lasting happiness.
Whatever you were questing for,
Today is the day.
Are you ready to let that in,
In your life?
It's a very powerful question.
But something that can clear up the barricades that we might have put on in our own lives to welcome this happiness.
We might have become so used to running behind a different object to find happiness.
There are some deep level.
We know we have to run again.
For example.
Whatever we are working on in our office,
In our teams.
There's always a deadline.
At a surface level,
We want to be done with this pressure that is building on.
And we want to meet this deadline.
But at a deeper level,
We know that there's a next deadline coming.
I'm not being a party pooper here.
Don't get my words wrong.
We want to celebrate our wins.
But we also want to zoom in.
Zoom into our own beliefs.
Zoom into our own insight that our hearts keep feeling.
But we don't know what to do with that feeling.
That's why my question.
What if today we did find the happiness that we were looking for?
Would we jettison our belief that I need to run for my happiness?
I need to pursue it.
It's going to come to me and then go away.
As if someone's playing a game.
Game of depriving you of happiness.
A cruel game.
Which seems rather unlikely.
Might make a great story.
I hope this question brings out the fear or the discomfort in our hearts.
I misspoke,
Sorry.
I hope this brings out the fear in our minds.
Fear of losing something familiar.
Even if it is painful.
Even if at the deepest level we want it to be gone.
That's how suffering is for us.
That's how unhappiness is for us.
We've only known periods of unhappiness sprinkled with moments of happiness.
The duration differs for each one of us.
But the pattern is given.
No matter where we have grown up.
What color,
Race,
Gender we belong to.
Or nationality.
Surprisingly,
All of us learnt the same thing.
About happiness and unhappiness.
What if you knew for sure that you had the potential,
The capability and the right to be happy.
Now.
Tomorrow.
And rest of your life.
Would you accept this audacious claim of mine?
What we are,
What we think we are afraid of is being put down.
Of being not good enough.
Or failing.
But actually what we are really afraid of,
Terrified of is knowing we are enough.
Of knowing our true potential.
Of the possibility of finding what we are looking for.
That's what we are truly terrified of.
Probably because we'll have to give a part of us up.
Probably a major part of us.
That only knows one thing.
Unhappiness punctuated by happiness.
You Let me explain this little,
Let me explain this quest for happiness that we have in our hearts.
With a little analogy.
If I told you about a fruit that you've never eaten,
You've never seen,
Never heard of.
Cannot imagine.
Do you think you're gonna quest for it?
Align your life towards it?
Probably not.
Yet we have aligned our lives to happiness.
Not now,
Since the beginning.
The reason being,
We know it.
It's not an alien thing that we are aspiring.
It's a very known thing that our hearts know deeply.
But we've just forgotten,
Along the way,
The true direction of happiness.
And in the process built up an identity that perpetuates the current hypothesis of our own happiness and unhappiness.
So in order to invite happiness in our lives,
And by happiness I mean long lasting happiness.
We need to have room for it in our lives.
We need to feel that we are capable.
Capable of inviting.
Capable of handling.
And capable of sharing it as well.
And whatever we have in our lives,
Whoever we are right now,
We are enough,
The way we are,
To invite this into our lives.
We don't need any more looks,
Money,
Fame,
Anything different,
We don't need any of those.
What I'm asking you for is a lot of courage,
And takes a lot of courage as well.
But I'm not asking this for myself.
Neither am I asking this for you.
I'm asking this so that you would see that what you want needs courage.
Courage would be a function of your own desire for this happiness.
Thank you.
We always have a choice to choose love.
Over anger,
Guilt,
Or fear,
There's always a choice.
Choosing love takes courage.
There's always a choice to be isolated or to connect.
Seeing this choice takes courage.
And making that choice also takes courage.
Thank you.
This courage is not the courage of violence.
This is the courage of love,
Of patience,
Of doing the hard work,
The emotional work,
The courage of intelligence.
Thank you.
My question to you is,
What if you found happiness today?
Would you invite it in?
Thank you.
