A grown-up kind of happiness?
In this post: reflections on happiness, but first, news of the launch of the new creative thorp website where you can browse and buy stunning art and poetry gifts. If you’ve been to the website before, then you’ll find it cleaner, quicker and easier to use. I hope you’ll enjoy browsing and consider subscribing to creative thorp via. the new subscription page.
A GROWN UP KIND OF HAPPINESS?
“Happiness”, writes Matthieu Ricard, “is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone and requires patient work carried out from day to day” (ref).
It has struck me lately how true this is for many of us; that achieving happiness is a grown-up, lifelong process rather than a permanent state; a way through to something intrinsic in us, rather than just a positive response to favourable or unfavourable circumstances.
Of course childhood is – for the fortunate child – a glorious place to be, and it is her very immaturity that leads to happiness: the ways in which she follows her needs and desires so closely, and finds delight in the simplest, stupidest things. Happiness, for the child, can be there because there is no requirement (for the fortunate child) for her to be anything else but immature. But then when immaturity lingers, it confuses the adolescent and begins to make looming adulthood seem a journey into the unknown. Continue Reading »
