In Pursuit of Happiness

by Shivie

When I was 20 I remember calling my mother to tell her I was divorcing my husband. Horrified, she asked me, “What do you want from life?” I replied, “To be happy.” She laughed and said, “Don’t be stupid, nobody’s happy, now, what do you want from life?” She seemed to be telling me that happiness was not something I, or anyone else for that matter, was going to experience. I remember not believing her then and I certainly do not believe her now.

It took me some time to come across people I thought were genuinely happy. The first were the Buddhist nuns and monks that I met when I started my own spiritual practice. They had a look of peace in their eyes that I had never seen before. And then, in 2000, on vacation in Mexico, I met Delfina.

Delfina lived in a small, sparse hut with several of her children and grandchildren. The hut, set in the jungle of the Yucatan, was bare but for a very small television and some embroidered garments that Delfina sold to tourists on the jungle tours. While our guide, Goyo, took us to experience a cenote, Delfina cooked us up a mighty meal. Saying our good-byes while not speaking a common language, Delfina looked into my eyes, and as I looked back at her I saw a brilliance in her old blue eyes that is as vivid a memory today as it was that day. A brilliance and spark that I had never seen before. Her eyes told me that in spite of what may be perceived as “lack” in her world, she was, and is, a happy spirit on this planet. She has found her place to be.

Sacred Cenote at Chichén Itzá

That particular vacation turned out to be a pivotal moment of my life. There were many “magikal” moments and I returned to change my life in more ways than one. Upon returning to “the old reality” I fully realized the true meaning of the saying “You can never step into the same river twice.” I had gone “on vacation” for eight days, only to return a different person with new dreams and aspirations, and with new hope that, although absent in my life to that point, happiness was available, and not necessarily linked to a big bank account. I began to experience happiness as more of an internal factor, rather than being dependent upon my external financial wealth. Finances are but one aspect of wealth. Now my time and health are indicators of the true wealth in my life.

Ten years have passed since that trip to Mexico. Fourteen months after my return I left the practice of corporate law. I bade farewell to my international corporate life and the six figure salary that came with it. At the time I did not know what was going to transpire or how I was in fact going to “earn a living” (the question everyone always wants to know). I was leaving to find a life filled with purpose, passion, and grace, the ingredients (for me anyway) for living a “happy” life.

Do not confuse all this happiness-speak with a lack of sadness or challenges. My life has been beset with both for the last ten years, but the difference is that I am now happy in my life. I find peace at the end of the day and I look forward to the days to come. I have had a card on my door for eight years which says “I am strong enough to rise above a challenge. Today may be a mountain, but I was born to climb”. That’s how I feel in life now, often challenged and always rising to it. Neither of which I felt when I toiling at the corporate grind, accumulating money and possessions, getting fatter and sicker.

I can look back at each of my anniversaries of leaving the corporate world and see my journey to life and happiness taking shape. Year to year challenges have been overcome until the next one appears. Each with a lesson and each with an opportunity to take me one step closer to my purpose. Sometimes, the same kind of challenges appeared in different ways, always giving me an opportunity to grow.

Housing is a challenge I seem to have had more than my fair share of. I moved to San Francisco from London 11 years ago and I have moved 12 times. Since leaving home at 18 I have always moved a lot. San Francisco is as challenging place as London to find somewhere within a tight budget to call home. At my lowest point I did not have a job, I needed a place to stay and I had five dollars in my bank account. I stayed with a friend for eight months and then progressively “moved up” until, two years and five moves later, I once again had my own one-bedroom apartment in Oakland.

When was a lawyer I never had to worry about how I was going to pay my rent and/or bills, yet my life was not happy. My pie chart of life was filled with sadness and sickness.

Happiness is a journey that we can choose to take by just making the decision to do so. In spite of what my mother told me twenty years ago, happiness IS possible.

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