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The realization has grown in my mind that the
two essential elements of happiness are humor and awe. At first appearance they may seem unrelated but
in my experience they are Siamese twins. As life unfolds it has become
almost unconscious for me to apply them equally to all experiences. To phrase it another way, the degree of
happiness we experience is directly related to how much humor and how
much of the sacred we can find in every situation. It may seem ridiculous to speak of finding humor
in some of our worst experiences. In one divorce I was so somber it
would have made George Burns sit down and cry his heart out. About all I
could find in it was a touch of awe that I had been faithful and
supportive in every possible way. In previous relationships I had not
been able to be that faithful and supportive. I felt a sense of
fulfillment. But over the years more and more facets of that life
experience have become humorous. As I read and re-read each year my journal
entries over those years and look at all the notes and cards and letters
from her and my notes on the things we said and did, humorous aspects
jump out at me. The healing hands of time hold out to us a big grin. Why feel grim about something when we can find a
grin in it? We feel grim because we have formed the mental habit of
classifying sad experiences as grim. As we look at them we can learn to
reclassify them, to view them from other angles and perspectives. We
learn to see humor where we have never seen it before. Finding the sacred is not any easier. We have
trained ourselves to view bad experiences as evil. Yet most of our great
leaps forward in consciousness come from difficult times and painful
situations. The third truth that will help until we can find
humor and awe is the truth of community. We can think of all our fellow
humans all over the world who are going through exactly what we are
going through and suddenly we do not feel so alone. It helps dissipate
some of the fear of dying to realize that billions of beings have gone
through the experience. It helps us dissipate any fear of anything to
realize how many of our brothers and sisters have gone through it and
are going through it right now. Make a new habit of stirring humor, awe and community into all situations. Make a visit to www.daltonroberts.com
or go to www.ipsfeatures.com.
where all his writings are gathered. Write him at DaltonRoberts@comcast.net.
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