2 Rules for Happy Living
There are two rules for happy living:
- Be able to experience anything.
- Cause only those things that others are able to experience easily.
To be happy, you must be able to experience those things that are there to be seen or experienced.
Unhappiness is simply the inability to confront that which is there to be confronted. This doesn’t mean that we need to agree with whatever it is that is there, it doesn’t even mean that you have to tolerate it. You’ve just got to be able to experience it.
The more you fight against something, the more you resist it, the bigger the adverse effect that it will have on you.
Pain, upset and insanity all result from causing things that others could not experience easily.
All bad acts, then, are those acts that cannot be easily experienced by the person receiving them.
If you look at the principle of cause and effect, you can remain “cause” by being willing to be the “effect” of the things around you. This may sound a bit “off with the pixies” but you can approach life as an observer, remaining objective, keeping some space between yourself and whatever you are observing or interacting with.
If somebody is being angry towards you, if somebody has a completely different viewpoint, if somebody does something that offends your sense of morality, even an act that you might find offensive, if something smells bad or is painful … the list goes on, having the willingness and ability to experience it will give you a chance to remain seperate and hopefully react in a more reasoned and sane manner.
In the world today there are many crazy things going on, socially, politically, sexually, musically, weird agreements, wars, vested interests. In order to make any sense of them we first have to be able to experience them, confront them, work out what is the best way to respond to them, study them and attempt to get to the truth or at least the facts.
I am not saying “to turn the other cheek”, you don’t need to take shit from anyone but you do need to be able to objectively experience whatever it is that is there in front of you.
Now for the hard part.
“Cause only those things that others are able to experience easily.”
This is just my interpretation. If some big boof head slaps you in the face, getting a punch back from you should be something that he can experience easily. If somebody looks prim and proper it is self evident that you screaming out “FUCK OFF” is going to offend them. It is all a matter of evaluating what you are about to do or how you are going to react and making a thoughtful decision about how you will respond. If there is an angry person in front of you threatening your survival your response would be totally different to that of a shy, withdrawn person who you would need to be gentler with. On another level you might have a strong viewpoint but the person you are interacting with will not respond to reason, is there really any point in engaging in an argument that neither of you will win. What is the point?
Our society comprises of many different people with different levels of intelligence, experience and ability to do meaningful research for themselves. Some people go with the flow simply because they don’t know what else to do. This may seem offensive. Unfortunately it is often the rule of thumb. If you look back at history you will find that “the mob” blindly follows the strong individual, especially when they use force. This doesn’t always end up in a good place but you have to be able to choose your fights.
The reason I subscribe to the 2 Rules for Happy living is that it gives me flexibility and even a certain amount of spontaneity. If I see that a person can tolerate me being loud and a bit silly then “why not!” But if on the other hand they simply “won’t get me” then why piss them off? My personal philosophy is that I desire to finish each interaction with the other person feeling a bit better about life which usually means that I will as well. I admit that I am not always successful but this is my underlying wish. I believe that we all need to gauge our own abilities and personal power and to use them thoughtfully for the betterment of life and those living it.
Pissing people off will only alienate myself from them, the end result will be unhappiness, pain and solidness all around. Asserting my own viewpoints at the risk of offending others will only make them push against me. The only way I can bring about a better world in my own eyes is to be inspirational to a greater or lesser degree and by doing this hopefully make others feel better about themselves and their lives.
