Four Steps to Lucid Happiness

Life is hard. It is possible to be happy through denying reality for a while. But to be lucidly happy is to be aware of all that is, including the cruelties and evil of life yet still appreciating that which is enjoyable and finding the positive in that which is not.

Lucid happiness is NOT passive. Lucid happiness is NOT a state of effortless nirvana. Lucid happiness is a choice, an act of will. Lucid happiness does NOT happen to you, it’s something that you decide you want to experience and then you go about creating it.

Lucid happiness is not just creating happiness through material pleasures, although temporary happiness is to be had in material pleasures – but lasting, lucid happiness is created in the way you perceive things; making a choice to change perception if it doesn’t serve your personal happiness, like a person who tries on prescription glasses and makes the choice to change them until they can see clearly.

The decision to be happy is not to be confused with positive thinking while standing in a painful flame. Denial of painful realities is not going to produce the clarity essential for lucid happiness. Be aware of the painful realities and take action to resolve them. Once you’ve stepped out of the pain of your own fire, you’ll be happy for a while; compared to life in the fire, life out of the fire is much better. But then it isn’t long before you feel compassion for those who are still standing in the pain of their own fires and through helping them out of it an even higher level of happiness is possible. That is lucid happiness - a higher awareness.

So the four steps to lucid happiness are:
1) Making the choice to be happy (and never wavering in this decision!)
2) Becoming aware of painful realities
3) Stepping out from the pain of your own fire
4) Helping others do the same