On Happiness

It is easy to say happiness is a practice. It is easy to spout lines about perseverence and courage and strength.

I consider myself a happy person, because I practice happiness everyday. Everyday, I actively search for things to be grateful for. Everyday is an opportunity to create something new, to cultivate something in my life. For me, happiness has been a practice everyday for the last year, but happiness is like any other practice... like running, or yoga, or writing.

There will always be days when I have a bad run. There will be days when I don't want to practice yoga. There will be days when writer's block sets in, and I feel like I've been robbed of my voice by my own brain. I have learned, in every case, the best thing to do is to keep going. On bad run days, I cut my run short - or I walk - but, either way, I get out there, and I go. Sometimes my yoga practice becomes a home practice, or a meditation session, or a different activity done mindfully... or, sometimes, I just take some time for myself and watch tv. This is yoga: using the mind to listen to the body, using the body to read the mind. When I have writer's block, I write shitty poems, or I just write down my thoughts, until something beautiful comes out.

There will always be days when happiness seems fleeting. There will be days that seem pointlessly difficult... there will be days when happiness seems impossible. I have these days. Everyone has these days. And these are the days I keep going anyway. If you're reading this, you kept going anyway. Pushing through the blocks - in running, in yoga, in writing, in happiness - this is what living is all about. And if you are strong enough to keep going everyday, even on days when this seems impossible, then you are strong enough to do anything. If you can make it through the darkness that exists within yourself, then you are strong enough to access the brightest parts of who you are. This is where your courage lives. In the marrow of your bones. In the nethermost parts of your being, there is life. And this is where we begin.

We begin by honoring our darkness. We being by recognizing the hardest parts of living as essential to our personal growth. We begin by breaking down. We see this pattern everywhere - this is why it's so difficult to take up something new. We do not like to be bad at things. We are ashamed of our own failure. But the master has failed 1000 times where the student has yet to try.

And happiness is a practice. We begin this practice by first being bad at it. We fail to maintain our happiness again and again, and each time we grow a little stronger, until we learn to find happiness in the mere truth of our existence.

The true master knows true mastery does not exist. There is always space to grow. There is always more to learn. So we practice again and again and again, even after we've "mastered" the art, we never stop learning. And happiness is a practice. Especially on the darkest days, happiness is a practice.

So practice. On the hardest days, keep going. And, in time, as your mastery grows, you will find your shoes feel a little bit lighter. You will find the ache in your bones was only ever growing pain. And you will find the sunshine in the middle of the night, planting its lips against the moon. You will understand that every shining star is a tiny beating sun in someone else's sky. And you will kiss the darkness in others. You will be a sun in someone else's sky.