The Ongoing Sensation

Can you be happy all the time? How do you get to a point where nothing can remove your inner joy? How does all of this positive emotion impact your life?

Happiness is holiness. It is something that is a part of G-dliness, and something that originates beyond this reality. It is something that rests inside us. The more we strive for holiness, the more happiness becomes a part of us. It’s like a muscle. Work on it, and it becomes bigger, effecting every aspect of your life. Neglect it and it goes flat, leaving a huge void where something special should be.

Holiness is emuna: the moment to moment understanding that everything which happens in your life comes straight from Hashem, and it is for your personal benefit. If something happens for your own good, even if it doesn’t immediately look that way, it is good so you should be happy about it.

It takes time to get used to seeing things like this. It takes a lot of effort to develop this conviction to a point that you transform into a new person with a predisposition for joy.

All my life there was no situation where I didn’t look for a reason to complain. Thanks to the good work of Rabbi Arush, the power of emuna erased that. Hashem placed me in an Israeli start-up company where the deadliest move I could make was to act like a kvetch so I was forced to put what Rav Arush and my wife taught me into action like never before. Emuna and happiness became a matter of survival.

It worked. The process of seeing the good in everyone and everything sped up. The changes became more apparent. 

What happens when you become happy? What happens when “bad” things can only temporarily dilute a joy you spend 99% of your life experiencing?

You perform the great mitzvah of being happy and Hashem smiles upon you. Life becomes really sweet:

* Happy people are healthier. In fact, happiness can increase the number of antibodies your body generates by 50%.

* Happy people earn more than unhappy people. Happy people do better at their jobs because they are more satisfied with their work. Happy people also have a greater potential to make money.

* Happy people don’t judge others. That’s a vital part of being sociable – which in fact, makes you even happier.

* People who are in the top income bracket are, on average, only 3.5% happier than the rest of us. Money doesn’t make you that much happier, and it certainly doesn’t keep you from being happy. The numbers don’t lie!

* Happy people are “luckier”. After all there is no such thing as luck: it all comes from Hashem! People with emuna “make their own luck” (lit. receive blessings from Hashem) with their upbeat attitude towards life. If losing 20% of your money in the stock market is accepted as a stroke of luck simply because you’re happy it wasn’t 40%, it’s a holy act. Deciding that you had a wonderful vacation because the lake was closed and your family got to grill sooner and spend more time sitting together is a sincere expression of gratitude. Seeing the good in all situations is a great source of blessing. It is also a fantastic way to train yourself to seek out opportunity in any situation – making it more likely that you will be “lucky” in the future.

As a result, happier people are more grateful for the things in life they have. They are grateful to their spouses. They are grateful to their children. They are grateful to their friends. Most of all they are grateful to Hashem.

Take everything you read about in the paper, especially the statements by leaders, events, and big decisions that make you upset. Take the opportunity to remind yourself that it all comes from Hashem, you just haven’t seen the good in it yet. Take every situation that causes you stress and Thank Hashem for the good that will come from it. Walk out the door and whisper 5 things in life you are grateful to G-d He gave you. Read a couple of pages of Rabbi Arush’s masterpiece, The Garden of Emuna, once again.

Then watch the holiness inside you grow. Feel the happiness within you expand. Enjoy all of these benefits for every moment you draw breath.

Happy living, my friends!