Happy New Year for 2014

Happy New Year for 2014

I’m writing this no newsletter to wish you a happy New Year. You can acquire happiness in many ways, beautiful clothes, lots of money, good health, a wonderful family and I wish you all that and more.

But there is another kind of happiness which isn’t dependent on any of these things. I’m referring to a place, not a mood. It’s a place that a person arrives at and strives to stay there forever.

All religions have names for this place; Judaism and Christianity call it salvation or the days of the Messiah, Islam calls it paradise, Buddhists call it Nirvana. It’s a place that one chooses to go to, not a mood that one hopes will come upon one. Making the choice is like deciding to take a long journey. Making the preparations for the journey one needs a map, a guide book and one needs to learn how to read the signs in order not to go astray. It’s a very long and difficult journey; few people have actually reached the destination called the place of happiness. There are no short cuts and there’s no guarantee that one won’t get lost on the way.

All the religions claim to have a book or libraries of books of instructions of how to get to that place

One needs to decide and to believe that the journey is worthwhile.

I believe that a person who chooses to make the journey stands a good chance of living a long life because once you have such a worthwhile goal to aim for, i.e. Happiness then you have something worthwhile living  for and you will stay alive in order to achieve your goal one day

Most people grab opportunities for celebrating because they hope to get in a happy mood; like a birthday party, New Year, Christmas and so on. There’s really nothing in the event itself to make the person be happy. He feels happy because he’s decided to celebrate; there is a cause to celebrate on the New Year, for example, the earth completes another cycle around the sun.

Another circle around the sun is like a long distance athlete who makes another circle of the track and the crowd applauds and encourages him to carry on to the next circle.

I want you to choose to make the journey to the place of happiness. That is my wish for you.

I’m convinced that being happy is a state of being like a place. It’s not a temporary feeling that passes. That is something else which comes from outside and when the stimulus disappears then happiness disappears.

Wishing you a happy New Year and a great no newsday

Yours truly

Leon Gork