8. The Mythical "Happily Ever After"

8. The Mythical "Happily Ever After"

Well, well, well... hello there wise ones..

As we grow as persons through maturity and wisdom, let us now contemplate the meaning of the phrase; "Happily ever after".

No doubt, this has been heard mostly in fairy tales.. and we, in the real world, like to think of it as things better to come.

When I asked that question to a couple people, they all looked at me like I am crazy. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.. who knows, eh?  I asked, purely out of curiosity of what other people thought of it. Sadly, nobody really knew. The answers I received were always more or less the same.. "I need to graduate, get a job, meet someone, new car, a family and then I can be happy and be "happily ever after" ".

Shocked, with the responses that I had gotten. I reflected on the question, "What IS being happily ever after?" The answer is simple, and falls right in our path to being bliss. The answer, to living happily ever after, is living NOW. ....No, I don't think I'm crazy.. let me explain.

In my second post, Learning to see beauty which we could rename to, "Learning to live in the "now". Buddha once said, "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." Or in another one quote from Annie Dillard who said, "How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives". Or another one, from Deepak Chopra, who said, "Every moment will offer itself as a window onto eternity, a doorway to the infinite". Or again, Jinny Ditzler was quoted saying, "The secret to happiness is to open the crack between the past and the future and live life in the moment we're in".

In the bible, Matthews 6:31, Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?", or, "what shall we drink?" or "what shall we wear?" The text goes on to continue, "Therefore, do not be anxious of tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." In the bible, we can see that worrying about a problem, is ridiculous. Why are you WORRIED about being happy tomorrow, when you can concentrate on being happy today? Why would you let tomorrow ruin your happiness today? Christianity, Buddhism, even Islam teaches us to live in the present moment.

Living happily ever after, is not a futuristic idea, it is an idea of the present-often set in the future. That is where we go wrong. Will the sun not shine, or the birds not sing in the future the way they do now? Live now, and ENJOY the things around you as they happen.

Reflect, and feel free to share with me your thoughts. The journey continues my friends.