The way is happiness

There is no way to happiness -- happiness is the way. Thich Nhat Hanh

Since I wrote this earlier this morning, the clouds have lifted and all is bright and shiny. Just like life; in the darkest moments the sun still shines behind cloudy skies. My Internet woes, however, did not lessen, they worsened! Eventually, I just couldn't access the web -- sort of like life too. I rely on external entities and some days, they're just not all that reliable -- and it's not about me! sometimes, I just have to find a work-around. Like today :)

It is a cloudy day today. Perhaps that's why my computer is groaning and moaning as it loads. It's slowness in drawing out from the depths of cyberspace the page I need to write on makes my fingers ache, my mind yearn for speedy release from the words building up inside me, searching for expression.

What fascinates me is the fact it's [my computer] still 'relatively' fast compared to my old one, or even my old one when it was new seven years ago. Compared to its normal operation, however, in today's high speed, SD, HD, ADD hyped up, jazzed up, sped up mode, it's mud slick slow.

Patience, the little bird of reason whispers in my ear. Patience.

Ahhh, patience.

Not my strong suit.

Perhaps it's not about the lack, or presence of patience in my life. Perhaps it is how I'm going about viewing where I'm at. Where my computer is at for that matter. It is an inanimate object and yet, I want to coax it, coerce it, co opt it into doing my bidding -- and it has a mind of its own! Ok. So there I go again, creating a sense of being other than a device that connects me to this place where so many beings come to visit and connect and reach out and reach in and reach into each other!

I'm not impatient with my computer. I'm impatient with not getting what I want when I want it!

Taking a page from Thich Nhat Hanh's book, There is no way to patience -- patience is the way.

Hmmm. So to 'find' my patience, the path is to be in this moment of being patient without falling into the need to 'be patient'. To accept, how I am is where I'm at and right here is my path.

Ok. So moving further into that place where the is 'no way', getting off the path of searching for the way ... there is no way to love -- love is the way.

There is no destination called, I love you.

This, right now, right here, is where love exists. Where love is. Where love resides.

And all the wrangling, strangling, convolutions of the spirit will never make it anything else other than what it is right now, right here.

Most of my life I have struggled with 'love'. Struggled to understand where am I on this path of love strewn life filled with pitfalls and upheavals, gaping wounds and seeping sores. I have invested hours and dollars and words and feelings and thoughts and ideas and tears and weeping, I've invested all my emotions into understanding how do I get to this place where I love me, just the way I am.

Perhaps it is that all I needed was to stand in that place where I am and state, I love me. Just the way I am.

Perhaps all any of us need is to stand in that place where we are and state, I love me. Just the way I am.

And then, to be the 'am' who loves ourselves, just the way we are.

In her book, Women, Food and God, Geneen Roth writes, "Change happens not by hatred but by love. Change happens when you understand what you want to change so deeply that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest."

There is no way to happiness -- happiness is the way.

There is no way to love -- love is the way.

Love is the way I want to live my life. Love is the way I choose.

And in this moment, loving me is all I can do to create harmony and joy in my life. Love is the way to be, me.

In love I become all I am meant to be.

In love, the world becomes all it can be for me to live fearlessly in the rapture of now.