Today's Meditation:

I wonder how many of us feel sometimes that what we share is somehow insignificant.  I wonder how many of us hold back on sharing our happiness because we think it may be inappropriate or because we think someone else may be in a bad space and won't appreciate what we share.  And just how do we share happiness?

I know one way that we don't share it:  by telling anyone else that they "should be happy."  An entertainer used to do this, telling members of the audience that life was beautiful and that if they weren't happy they were doing a disservice to life and to God.  She was very successful and happily married, and very happy.  At the time.  A few years later, when she was going through a very painful divorce, she told an interviewer just how much she regretted saying those words while on stage--she had shown no compassion at all to where other people might have been in their personal journeys.

We lose nothing of our own happiness if we share it--as long as we don't create artificial expectations in our minds as to how people should react when we share our positive, upbeat messages about happiness.  If we expect certain responses, disappointment most certainly will follow.

Can our happiness and positive energy be as a candle in the night, as a beacon to others who are looking for ways to feel happy themselves?  If we want it to be so, then we can just be ourselves, giving of ourselves from our own happiness, showing unconditional love to others while we demonstrate what a life of happiness--no matter what our circumstances--truly can be.

Questions to consider:

What are some effective ways of "sharing" happiness?

How can we know that our own happiness won't decrease if we share it with others?

What does sharing happiness mean to you?

For further thought:

It was probably a mistake to pursue happiness; much better
to create happiness; still better to create happiness
for others.  The more happiness you created for others
the more would be yours—a solid satisfaction that
no one could ever take away from you.

Lloyd Douglas

Today's quotation:

Thousands of candles can be lighted from
a single candle, and the life of the candle
will not be shortened.  Happiness never
decreases by being shared.

Buddha

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