Not Searching for Happiness.

Peace. Join the movement.

I’ve been a consistent visitor of the Sky Creek Dharma Center in Chico, CA on Thursday nights. It’s a night for us young minds (20 something year olds) to meditate and learn about Buddhism. I fell in love with the Center the first time I stepped in the serene atmosphere. I wouldn’t miss my Thursday nights  with my meditation group for anything. It allows me to relax and tone down my week.

One thing that really stood out to me this past Thursday was a talk about Happiness. Now, we all think that if we search for happiness, we will find it. I don’t believe that to be true. You can’t find happiness, it comes and goes when it pleases. I just found this to be true most recently. I’ve been trying so hard to find my right path. Where I should go after college, where I should work…etc. I’ve been so stressed searching for the path that will make me happy and in the mist of it all, it made me not happy. It made me miserable. So I gave up. I truely don’t know exactly what I will be doing, but it doesn’t bother me anymore.

So when I’m not searching for happiness, I now find myself happy. I’m relaxed. It’s as simple as that. I can really enjoy myself and what’s going on around me. I’m so tired of trying to plan my future, when what I really need to think about is RIGHT NOW. There is no future. There is only right now. Right now. RIGHT NOW. I might say in the future I will move home to Monterey, but once I get there I won’t be in the future. It will be right then, that present time. I will never be in the future. So why do we worry so much about what is to come? I have had that state of mind since I was little. I was always planning and looking ahead, only to miss what was happening in the present moment. I feel like I missed a lot and I’m not going to let that happen to me anymore. So I’m not searching for happiness and I’m not planning my future. I’m just going to be me, right here, right now. And whatever that looks like, sounds like, or feels like…that’s just it.