The first step to becoming happy is realizing how we are making ourselves unhappy. This is very hard to see because we are certain that something outside of us is making us unhappy, that some event from our past is preventing us from being happy, that there is some defect within us that prevents us from allowing ourselves to smile, to love.

If we were in a constant state of loving everyone and everything, we would be ecstatic all the time. But so many people justify closing our hearts off to the universe around us. And so we have to ask ourselves: What am I afraid of that would happen if I were to be open and to love every aspect of this magical, chaotic, crazy universe we live in?

For most of us, there is a fear that we’d be taken advantage of or that we’ll be hurt. This is not love. Love is wisdom. Love is about not just creating our internal conditions for optimal happiness, but about letting others around us see their own potential, see their own light inside of them, see their own worth and value through your eyes.

And when the people around us feel loved, feel worthy, they are not going to be as likely to cheat or to betray us. People often act the way we treat them. If we treat someone like they might be a thief or a liar or a hurtful person, they’re more likely to be that.

So love does not mean allowing abuse. It means to love ourselves enough to get to safety, to love ourselves enough to not be put in a situation where we can be taken advantage of. But it also means we love those who didn’t get enough love and who are hurting others right now, because the only way to change the world and make it a more loving place is by being more loving.

The other misconception people have is that love must be reciprocated, and this is also a fallacy because that is neediness. That is attachment to an outcome, and we already miss this perfect, blissful moment that we’re almost always in sight of. Unless we’re being physically harmed, we can feel bliss. And even when we are in pain, we don’t have to suffer. We don’t have to turn to that mental reaction that says, Why is this happening to me? I don’t deserve this. That reaction to genuine pain creates even more suffering.

Every single thing we do in life is with the intention of leading us toward a more pleasant existence and away from a painful one. That is why we take our hand out of the fire as a child and don’t put it back in. This is why we seek out what we hope will bring us lasting happiness. And so we have this guide within us that is always pointing us toward this ultimate truth that is love.

Love is greater than hate, and only people who have never experienced this feeling of universal love, which is love for everything, not romantic love, not family love, but love for every moment, for every living being, haven’t known that this is the greatest feeling we are being pulled to as a species. And I believe we’re getting closer to it every day.

The beauty is that when we become our happiest selves, when we create that inner change, everyone around us changes and the world changes. We cannot commit a crime when we feel the Oneness of everything. We are just stealing from ourselves. We are just hurting ourselves when we hurt others. When we hate others, we are embodying hate.

No matter what happened in the past, it is over. It is gone. There is only this moment. And just like if we cut ourselves and we are healing, that cut, when we slipped on the knife in the kitchen, is over. There is a remnant of that in the present moment, but that is something that will heal.

Everything from our past can heal, and the way that we heal is through that cleansing spaciousness of presence. If we keep reliving the past, if we keep worrying about the future, we are just opening that wound over and over again. And the best disinfectant is presence.

We don’t think our way out of our problems, our pain, our trauma. We let that bliss of presence, that present moment love that is the center of who we are, heal all. And there is nothing stopping us in this very moment from being happy.

Often, we think that if someone is being really mean or verbally abusive, that prevents us from becoming happy. But that only happens when we identify with the ego, when we identify with a fictional part of us that needs praise and cannot stand blame, criticism, and other people’s negativity.

When we disidentify, it’s like watching a movie. Someone may be screaming, even right at us, but there is this screen between us, and those words are not penetrating us because we know we’re not the ego. We know we’re not this social construct that requires admiration and crumbles in the face of lies and slurs and rumors.

People are going to people. But we are spiritual beings. We are Consciousness watching a movie. Sometimes that movie is turned inward and we are just watching thoughts, memories, worries, criticisms, and judgments as we get lost in those egoic mental patterns, and we are missing the show.

When we become present, it is like teleporting from a memory, a thought, a different place in time and space, teleporting into reality. And it is incredible. It is rich and alive and peaceful. Everything in our minds is low-resolution, not vibrant, and not reality.

But just like when we dream, we know that everything is one. We know we are the creators of the dream and that it is all a projection from our mind. This is a microcosm of our true reality. The world we live in, the universe we exist in, it is all from our consciousness. We are the viewers and creators, and whatever we choose in this moment is possible.

A lot of people think that being happy means thinking happy thoughts. But that’s thinking happy. That’s not being happy. The key to being happy is to simply be present. When the mind is focused on the here and now, when it is able to rest in the space we are in, then from the bliss of being present, happy thoughts naturally arise.

There’s no more resisting. There’s no more getting mad at someone cutting you off in traffic. It’s just all the flow and the dance of this magical universe. And if it went how we always wanted it to go, it wouldn’t be interesting, wouldn’t be exciting, wouldn’t be surprising, we’d be bored.

So be grateful that it’s beyond our understanding, beyond our expectations. Let go of the need to control, the need to have it be predictable. And wherever you are, you can enjoy the show, no matter what is happening.

This is the key to lasting happiness. Because we all are getting older, we are all going to die, and even in grief, there is beauty, there is love, there is poetry, there is meaning. If we were to lose something and not grieve, it would have had no significance in our lives. And so even in sorrow there is great joy. We just have to expand our perspective.

When we see the whole of this universe as one, we can always take pleasure in whatever is going on, the plant in the corner, the smells of the air, and the textures all around us. This life is a miracle. Every single second. Every breath is a gift.

When we lose that broader perspective, we suffer. But when we expand that image and see the wholeness, it is the greatest drama-comedy-tragedy ever told. And there’s no reason for us to suffer through this incredible movie that we are always watching, more than a movie at the theater, where we experience no suffering, even though we feel every emotion of the characters.

Underneath the Oneness lies the illusion of separateness, and the illusion is so good, so lifelike, that we forget all the time that it is just an illusion. It is the blink of an eye in cosmic time. It is a short trip around the sun, but it is not eternity.

These little moments, these few years we’re here, aren’t life or death, not meant to be taken so seriously. We are just here to play, explore, learn, and grow.

When we start to look around and ask ourselves, when something doesn’t go our way, What is the universe trying to show me? What is it trying to teach me? Then we become explorers, exploring the universe through these bodies, expanding and evolving our consciousness as we go, so that we can explore even more.

And not just out there, but within. Just as far as you can travel on this Earth or to the space station, you can go even deeper within. You can explore the entire universe within.

The problem lies in the fact that most people never look inward, and so every moment seems like life or death. Every day at work seems like the most important day at work, when in reality it is just another day, just another day out of billions of days.

When we take that bigger perspective, we remove the pressure, the stress, the worry, the negativity that we put on ourselves. We can actually be present, enjoying what we’re doing with our full attention so that we do it even better than if we were constantly worried, constantly thinking about what could go wrong or whether it will get us our promotion or raise or next house or impress a romantic partner.

This is how we stay present. This is how we flow through life without resistance and become one with the universe, because we are not forcing it to be a different way. We are working with it to achieve the goals our highest self knows to be true for us.

We are bombarded from morning till night with messages from society, our family, our friends, and the media. All of this input can make us forget who we truly are, can make us forget what we really want and care about in life.

When we block all of that out and turn inward, we find ourselves. We find that the compass points us in the direction to take our lives. It is essential.

What you discover when you travel the world is that one culture is completely into one way of believing and thinking about things. And you realize that is how I was, except in a different direction. We realize how much we are a product of our environment and our society.

When we spend a little time in nature alone, or when we spend time just closing our eyes and listening to our breath, we are able to discover what truly makes us happy instead of what society tells us will make us happy.

As we look at it more and more, we realize that anything that brings short-term happiness is not true happiness. And it’s those actions, and even lack of action, where we are not consuming content and entertainment, that raise our happiness levels after the activity is over.

These activities that take a little effort at first but make us happier in the long run, those are the things we’ll start chasing. 

We just have to block out the noise so we can finally hear our higher self talking to us. The wisdom within always knows what’s best. Nobody else knows us. And we need to learn who we are more than anyone else.