All the Wrong Places

The fourth insight is that we seem to be looking for happiness in the wrong place.

Most of us, especially in the corporate world, believe that our analytical tools, our ability to figure things out, can be applied to happiness, too.

We think there must be a formula for happiness. That if we follow the right steps, get the right stuff, do the right things, we can be happy, as surely as 1+1 is 2. But Jill Bolte Taylor and a lot of brain research seems to say the opposite.

The view that happiness can be reduced to a list or a formula is the view of the brain's left hemisphere. Yet the experience of happiness, of bliss even, is without conditions, is beyond time. It is only our right hemisphere that is capable of recognizing that in this very moment, we are already complete. And that this very moment is all there is.

There is nothing more that needs to be done. You are already complete and one with the universe, which is perfect exactly as it is.

If you are like most people, you simple cannot believe that this is true. Your left hemisphere still wants to do things; it cannot be convinced that it is not the solution to the happiness problem (and it does a nice job of creating the problem that needs the solution, yes?). It feels like you are not happy, and it feels like this is a problem.

If you still want to solve this problem, do things that help you tune into the right hemisphere's view of the world. Cultivate the present. Meditate, do yoga, spend time in nature. Close your eyes and notice how vague the boundaries feel between you and the rest of the world. See how everything is constantly changing in ever present impermanence. See how your problems come and go with your thoughts.

But most of all, know that whatever you do, or don't do, can be nothing but perfect already.

Jeff