Happiness Comes From Relationships

10:00 AM - August 7, 2014 by Jonathan Burch

Happiness comes from fulfilling realtionships.  Happiness does not come from possessing things.  Happiness comes from fulfilling relationships with self, other people, all of existence and the source of all.

We tried buying things to be happy in the United States in the past 20 years and it failed miserably.

The average person had so much money to spend, even the poor were wealthy by world standards.  Most people had more money to spend than ever before, and they spent it on things.  Interest rates were kept low by the government and the government encouraged below market mortgages, so more people could borrow more equity out of their homes and spend the cash.  People could and did by all the things they wanted.  Then they want more and more things, but eventually could not afford them.

If having things would make people happy, this period of life in the United States should have been a nation of happy people.  What happened?

Instead pif happiness, there was a national yearning.  People were asking, “Is this all there is to life?”  Instead of the Secular Century predicted 50 years ago, where religion would decline to insignificance, there is a deep spiritual yearning for meaning and hope across the land.  Religion has consequently rebounded, often in different, more modern forms, but has dramatically remained a mainstay of American life.  There is a spiritual renewal, because of the failure of materialism as the meaning of life.

Neither things, money, power, glory, fame or control over people are the path to fulfilled, meaningful life and happiness.  Ultimately they are all empty, as we have found out.

What is the path to happiness?  If it is not form things, from what?

Happiness comes from relationships.  Happiness comes from fulfilling relationships with self, other people, all of existence and the source of all, called here the Divine Harmony.  These are the four corners of human relationships.  All four of these relationships taken together form the wholeness of happiness.  If any one is under fulfilled, you will not be filly happy. 

Too often in the past we have focused only on one of these relationships.  Our culture and our religions have said that the way to successful life is to suppress self and serve others.  That is no longer true.  Now we must reach for true wholeness.  We must love our neighbor as ourself, not instead of ourself.  The first relationship is to have an honest, fulfilling relationship with your self.  Be honest with yourself about whether you are happy or not, and accept the responsibility for doing something about it.  Be responsible for what you promise to do.  Know tha thou can rely on yourself to do what you must to get along in the world.  Have confidence in your self.  Respect yourself as a reliable, competent, compassionate person.  Seek to improve yourself.  Get an educe at ion, and keep learning all your life.    Develop your talents and abilities and apply them usefully and successfully in the world.  Deserve your self respect and your proper self esteem.  Don’t get a big head about it.  Just do your job, and do it well.

Your relationship with other people is still very important to your happiness.  Humans evolved to be social animals.  We survive, flourish and reproduce better in groups.  We have evolve ed many emotions and traits that bind us together and make us good partners and fellow workers.  Human specialization is a great strength of human economy.

Two of the four pillars of the global ethos of the new global knowledge civilization are based on relationships.  Every relationship is precious and the harmony of every relationship is precious.  This wisdom if lived will lead you to full happy life.

For example, if there is a disturbance in the harmony of a relationship between you and another person, do not immediately seek revenge.  Immediately seek reconciliation, using forgiveness if necessary.  As quickly as possible, restore the harmony of the relationship with the other person. That is where your happiness lies in harmonious relationships with other people.

Your relationship with all of existence is also vitally important.  You need food to eat and air to breath.  If you are a painter, you need colors and substances with which to apply the colors.  A guitarist needs a special wood to keep the sound reverberations going a long time to make the music melodious and lasting.  The machines now make our lives possible.  The environment cradles us.  We each have a relationship,with all of existence.  We should make it respectful and harmonious.  Just use what of nature you need to be fulfilled as a whole person.  Do not seek to destroy whole species of nature to insure you will have what you want.  Enjoy nature and let nature be as nature will be.  Ultimately you cannot change that.  Don’t try.  Live harmoniously with nature.

Finally you have a fulfilling relationship with the source of all.  The reason for this is deep within your evolved personality.  You have an internal conflict that you cannot resolve.  Your cognitive goal direct decision system functions to find and solve problems in your environment , so you can respond adaptively, survive, flourish and reproduce.  However you cannot know everything.  It is impossible for you to know how to respond to some aspects of real life.  

These situations pose unanswerable questions, such as what happen after death?, is there any meaning to life?, and is there any reason to go on?.  If you cannot answer these unanswerable questions, your personality may naturally shut down in hopelessness, and you will shrivel and die.  You need answers, believable answers to these questions to go on, your and everyone in your group, or the whole tribe will cease to exist.

This is the role of religion to provide believable answers to these desperate unanswerable questions.  If you have a good relationship with what you believe is the source of all, the harmony of nature or some god who created everything and knows everything, then you have an authoritative source for such believable answers.  

Different religions and way of life have different understandings of the source of all. On this site the source of all is called by the common name of the Divine Harmony.  Each person can speak of the Divine Harmony with others and understand the Divine Harmony to be the source of all which he or she understands to be real.  The others can understand the idea of the source of all which is believable to them.  All can talk together about how the Divine Harmony, as each understands the source of all, guides them to full life.

On this site an eBook is offered which describes how to have an intimate, guiding  inner friendship with the Divine Harmony to learn how to respond to live correctly to life your fulfilled life as a whole person, to live as you were born - to be happy.  The eBook is called “Inner Friendship For Everyone”.  Get it, read it’s nine steps and build your precious inner friendship to guide you successfully for the rest of your life.