Enough Already by Alan Cohen

Author:Alan Cohen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House, Inc.
Published: 2012-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

Although most people in our culture have everything we need to survive, and we are fully capable of dwelling in a state of self-actualization, for some odd reason we tend to gravitate toward struggling at a survival level. Yet, like my friend Tony, you can refuse to settle for an identity as a survivor and instead see yourself as a thriver. You may already be sitting at the top of the pyramid of life, but missing the view. In the Old Testament (Genesis 13:14), God told Abram (later Abraham), “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward.” The instruction was more metaphorical than literal: Raise your vision from the small and demeaning to the expansive and celebratory. There is a far greater world available to you than the one you have been living in.

Happiness Envy

In the film Broadcast News, a neophyte reporter who is intensely happy asks a veteran newsman what to do when your real life exceeds your dreams. The elder tells the fellow to just keep it to himself.

The oddest effect of happiness is that other people are often annoyed by it. Misery does love company, so a joyful person poses a threat to those steeped in sorrow. This is so for a couple of reasons:

— First, people who perceive a reward for being lost, sick, alone, poor, or victimized have an investment in their reality. When someone comes along who challenges that reality, teeth are bared in an effort to get rid of the intruder bringing sunshine to a rainy but familiar perceived safe domain.

— Second, observing a happy person stimulates the psycho­dynamic of envy. If I want something but haven’t been able to get it, and I see that you have it, your success reminds me of what I am missing. So you become the bad guy for underscoring my pain. One way I can level the playing field is to try to tear you down so we are both groveling.

If these responses to happiness sound sick, irrational, foolish, immature, and self-destructive, they are. But hey, the ego has never been known for its kindness and love to self and others. Shining the spotlight on its trickery is the beginning of loosening its hold and replacing it with thoughts, feelings, and actions that truly serve.

When you choose contentment, happiness, or any other form of positive self-expression, you are likely to encounter people who mistrust, challenge, criticize, and ridicule you. I remember walking into an office, smiling. Upon seeing me, the secretary snarled, “And what the hell are you so happy about?”

What do you do with people who can’t handle your happiness? Don’t let them steal it from you. Hold your space and remember that well-being is far more natural than resistance to it. Don’t take the negativity of others personally, don’t argue with them, don’t try to prove anything, and don’t flaunt your glee. Just live it. Regard their envy as a compliment, an indication that your light is obvious.

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