When choosing a dedication for the new year, I often spend a lot of time reflecting. This years theme seemed to barrage me from all quarters, in fortune cookies, in greeting cards, in notes and songs, in conversations and print. I chose happiness because it is something I resist and eye with suspicion, like a shady thief whose brilliant smile coaxes me, time and again, into a modicum of trust only to rob me of its riches come morning. Obviously, a skewed view of joy, founded in a belief that transience bespeaks falsehood (a belief, by the way, that I don't seem to apply to suffering). I recently heard Adyashanti speak on a similar topic with a challenge to "Allow everything to BE as it is". Wow. It seems difficult until one acknowledges that everything IS already as it is and it is insane to try to resist it at every turn while drowning out the "now" with a chorus of dictates on how it should be, has been or could be. The Course in Miracles reads, "Would you rather be happy or right?". Interesting how often we choose to impress our "rightness" at the cost of joy, our beliefs at the cost of truth, our story at the cost of peace. When once I asked my kid brother how to sustain happiness he answered with the twinkling eyes of youth, "Well Sis, it's just like flying in Peter Pan, you think happy thoughts". Hmmm. That is easier said than done, since thoughts seem to flow through the river of mind at the level of consciousness. Could a dedication to happiness raise the level of the water? Or might it encourage a playful dance with the waters of life, choosing to float and trust our innate buoyancy. This new year's dedication is an experiment really, asking what life might look like through the lens of joy. It's not a resolution, rather a north star pointing ever to this moment AS IT IS RIGHT NOW.
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