3 Minutes of Happiness…

Imagine your 22 year old self in your new job. You are working for a man more than three times your age that treats you like his grandchild.  Each morning he asks you to have coffee in his office with him and chat. That is how he likes to start off the day. You are focused on the work he was giving you and wanted to get going. You had plans that night, no time for overtime! However being the good employee you oblige.  He begins to share wisdom with you although you may not recognize it that way at this moment.  He teaches you about the organization you work for. He begins to help you understand the true purpose of your role. He is a wonderful teacher.

One day he shares that he hopes you truly get 3 minutes of pure, blissful, peaceful, real happiness each day.  That is the happiness that you find inside of you. That is a good life lived, he said.  That statement makes you pause. “Of course I’m going to find 3 minutes of happiness a day, how silly,” you think.  “I’m happy because I have a job, friends, and have fun!”

As life moves on you begin to find that there is joy, fun and happy moments mixed in with tumultuous moments, sadness and fear.  There are too many moments when you doubt yourself, when you have listened to others opinions instead of your own. When you believe your happiness is dependent on things, or people. You begin to think that if just got that promotion or got married or had children or found love you would be really happy!

Stress creeps in, family issues, life. And you aren’t happy with you. When you aren’t happy with you, you will never find that pure happiness. I realized that when I woke up from my 2 decade on and off depression.

Perhaps it isn’t 3 minutes a day of happiness but far less than you thought, even if you have lived a great life so far.  Perhaps it is 3 minutes a day and now that doesn’t sound so unreasonable.

The amount of in- the- moment pure happiness should be celebrated in your life. Perhaps if we are mindful about the 3 minutes of happiness we can multiply that! We can be happy more, and share that happiness more.  The more we share that happiness, perhaps the more happiness we will find in the world. We need to embrace who we are and not listen to other opinions. It is about being happy not getting happy.

For many, a few minutes of true meditation and breathing help them be happy and grateful.  Meditation does not come easy to me. I have struggled to really be able to make it a consistent practice in my life. I listen to guided meditations but they are generally long and I can easily lose focus. I have just begun trying 2 minute breathing meditations. I sit quietly and breathe deeply filling my body with breath and then exhaling.   I know your brain’s job is to think and in meditation we strive to bring the brain back to our intention. I can focus on my breathing for a lot of the 2 minutes. It becomes much more difficult as the time gets longer.  The 2 minutes is truly blissful. And my intention very often is filling myself with love.

I think that the more we focus on our self-love the more chance there is for us to be happy.  I don’t know if it is 3 minutes, 30 minutes or 300 minutes a day but I do know that happiness is found inside. But it certainly shows on the outside.

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