About the simplicity of happiness …

We live in a world that talks a lot about happiness. Coaching, mindfulness and self-help books grow before our eyes, in the windows of bookstores of most cities.
Along with that, grows the pursuit to be happy the whole time, as if that was a card in the game of life.
If there is one thing, my trip to India has showed me is that happiness can be simple, clear and uncomplicated, but our Western civilizations (so called evolved) are maybe turning into something complex. To be happy is to have a roof to sleep under, food to survive, health and peace. The opposite is to be unhappy. This is not learned in schools or at university, we see on the streets, in the eyes of people and we feel it in our skin.
To be able to take a nap, in peace, the joy of not being cold, of drinking water without catching diseases, to be able to take a shower, to have electricity power, to brush our teeth with tap water, to have fresh fruits and vegetables, to be with your family, to be able to support your children, to be healthy.

When the worries of everyday life are restricted to simple survival, everything else is ridiculously superfluous. Basic. And as the saying goes, we only give value to what we lose or we do not have, and there will always be less good days…

In this age of abundance, we lose ourselves in the process of living and forget about the gratitude. The gratitude to have so much, much more than we truly need. And worse than that, it is to have so much and always want more. This unrestrained and disproportionate competition, wears us down to the stupidity of not cherishing, caring for and preserving the essential. We live in a time of glorification of being busy, as if it was a synonymous of more money and that alone was equal to happiness.

As the Dalai Lama once said ‘What surprises me most in Humanity are men … Because they lose their health to make money, then lose money to restore their health. And by thinking anxiously about the future, forget the present such that end up not live neither the present nor the future. And they live as if they will never die … and they die as if they had never lived. ‘

So keeping that in mind; enjoy the small pleasures of life in 2016 and be grateful. It is always good to remember (and yes, I’m talking to myself here too …;)).

Tip: One of my New Year’s resolutions was practicing meditation and Yoga. I leave you here two suggestions. Application Head Space, 10 minutes a day of meditation and Yoga camp with Adrienne. Try it, it doesn’t cost money.
Happy New Year!