part of the entire journey.
Here is an example. It tells the experience of a junior officer serving in the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS). He was an energetic man wanting to experience everything in life. Just the effort required to gain entry to this elite unit was, in itself, a great achievement. But he always wanted to experience more, and so, even whilst posted to the SAS he enrolled at University to complete a degree by part time study. It was really an effort for him to fit in all this study with the demands of army life, which often took him away to courses and exercises.
One day in January, high summer, he lay on his back on the neatly manicured lawn in front of the University’s Great Hall, a magnificent building of hewn limestone blocks. He was waiting for the exam results to be posted in the large window in the undercroft. He tried to relax. But the anticipation was filling him with a mix of emotions. He shaded his eyes with his forearm, looked into the sky and thought over and over, “I want to be a graduate of this University. I want to be a graduate of this University.”
Then a flurry of excitement as the notices went up. He joined the crowd of jostling students. Suddenly there it was – his name on the list. His eyes flicked across – “I’ve passed. I’ve done it, I’ve done it!” He was exhilarated, and deserved to be, for his achievement had required a long period of dedication and study. There had been many moments when it would have been easier for him to give up and get on with more practical things.
In the melee of happy students there was a general excitement, back slapping, hand shaking and congratulations. Everyone was happy in the shared exhilaration of success. Then there came the time to savour the personal happiness by himself. He hopped on his motorbike and rode off gleefully. His track took him around the scenic drive along the Swan River in Perth towards Claremont and home and family. The warm air ruffled at the loose fitting T-shirt as he went and the mild breeze swept around his bare arms and legs with a sensual feeling of physical well-being. He felt terrific. He felt like a million dollars. This is an example of the type of happiness that comes when people have worked for it.
It just so happens that the person who slept in the back of the car and the person who lay on the lawn outside the University’s Great Hall were one and the same man. This shows it is possible for the same individual to experience both forms of happiness – that which comes from the Universe as a gift, and that which is earned through work. It is not uncommon – everyone has experienced both forms of happiness. Think about your own life. Is this true for you?
Comparing the two experiences, the unexpected moment and the moment we have worked for, it seems some moments of happiness come to us by accident and some come by design. Each is an equally valid experience of happiness. What can we do to re-create them? Can we work towards being happy? Is it possible to combine the two, working in such a way to increase the chances of having some ‘accidental’ happiness, as well as having happiness we set out to achieve.
I believe the answer to both questions, ‘Intentional’ happiness and ‘Accidental’ happiness, is – definitely YES. This book deals primarily with the first question, the things you can do to create happiness intentionally. But I am also sure that by creating happiness intentionally, you will also create the circumstances, and mind set, for literally hundreds, thousands even, of wonderfully exciting moments of spontaneous happiness to occur.
Let me now return to the question of why we have the moments of accidental happiness and happiness in the midst of misery. My fundamental belief about these moments is that they are special moments of spiritual insight. I’m sure that it is the way the Universe, or God, or whatever word you want to use, opens up to us for a moment to show us the potential is there.
An important step to be taken by those who have achieved the happiness of the journey is to immediately reset a new plan and set out on a new journey – even in the moment of excitement when the destination of the old journey has been reached.
An associate of mine has related to me how there have been parts of her life that have been quite plagued by aimlessness, inability to reach any goal and, at moments, almost despair. She has certainly experienced the strange feeling of a sudden and intensely happy insight at a time of low emotional ebb. She summarises it very well when talking of this phenomenon of the happy moment in the midst of misery. She says:
When you reach that moment of complete despair the Universe or God or whatever, will actually intervene to give you one of those moments of profound and inexplicable happiness. It does this just to show you the potential that is still there. I have spoken to many people who have experienced that moment. It is given to us gratis, completely free! What we do with that moment is ultimately up to us and might actually be one of the tests of our lives. We can slide back and lose it. Or we can hold it before us and use discipline and intentional acts to pursue it.
This type of experience is by no means confined to the people of our own time. It is recorded in many places in more ancient literature. Religious writings are full of it, descriptions of ecstasy, sublime happiness, unbounded joy. For example, in the Christian scriptures Saint Paul, in the second letter to the Corinthians, describes the experience in which, he reports, he was taken up into the ‘third heaven’. He tells that he saw things beyond the ability for humans to understand. There has been much conjecture about what Paul was describing, because notions such as ‘third heavens’ have nothing to do with the core of Christianity at all. So it must have been something which was happening in St. Paul’s mind and even St. Paul could not decide whether the experience was a physical one or a purely spiritual one. Whatever it was it must have been a powerful experience because it was one of the things that kept him going throughout his whole life. St. Paul led a life in which he experienced considerable suffering. He was shipwrecked, imprisoned, persecuted, beset by personal torments, and probably suffered blindness too. One explanation of his ‘third heaven’ account is that it may have been one of those experiences at the moment of final despair.
Another interesting historical account is from the life of John Bunyan. I was once intrigued by the life of this man, a copper smith in pre-Industrial Revolution England. It is reported that he was physically unattractive, quite ugly in fact. He carried a heavy anvil tied to his back with ropes, eking out a living as he went from place to place. John Bunyan led a life of great hardship and very little worldly achievement and yet reports in his writings great moments of spiritual joy. The anvil has been preserved in a church in England where there is also a stained glass window depicting John Bunyan on the road. To some art critics the subject of the window might seem quite corny but it moved me to tears when I first saw it. It shows the heavy ropes breaking and the weight of the anvil falling from his back as he first leapt to that wonderful moment of spiritual freedom. It moved me so much because it so closely depicted a part of my own experience. I’m sure the happiness John Bunyan reported is an example of the Universe opening up and showing us the potentialities.
Interestingly too, both St. Paul and John Bunyan are examples of people who did not let the glimpse of happiness slip from their sight. They held the glimpse before them and pursued it for the rest of their lives. Maybe we can copy their example.
In our quest to create happiness intentionally, it is necessary to spend some time looking at the other side of the coin. We need to look at the questions: What is unhappiness? What makes us unhappy? What were the features in our lives when we experienced unhappiness? The purpose of looking at this other side of the coin is not to go back and wallow in the unhappiness we had, nor to engage in negativity. The purpose is to be able to identify what we want to avoid. Surely an action plan to create happiness intentionally needs to comprise several major strands: the things we need to do to avoid unhappiness and the things we need to do to create happiness.
Towards the end of my last book, ‘Switch On To Your Inner Strength’, I asked
