Two small steps to freedom (and perchance to happiness )

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

that all men are created equal;

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;

that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

I would love to tell you that freedom equals happiness but I cannot.

The author of the fine words above sought not to either. But he did say that happiness could be achieved by being free to pursue it - though of the outcome one can never be certain.

So often we exercise our freedom of choice by choosing to be miserable. We bend to the will of others not because we are compelled to, but because we choose to. We employ our freedom of speech to say nothing, and our freedom of association to be alone.

All the while others may exercise their freedom to attack our way of life, to police our thoughts, to exclude us from the political arena and to make us question our relevance and worth in society. They demand laws that criminalise our choice of lifestyle and marginalise our forms of expression.

Freedom does not equal happiness.

What I can tell you is what got me started on the road to happiness. It is what I call the two stages of acceptance. Make of it what you will, but it works for me.

The first stage of acceptance is the acceptance of you. You are who you are and can never be anyone else or anything else, other than a corpse. You have total control over what you do but not over whether or not you are you. You are stuck being you for the rest of your life. Hopefully you are happy being you. Ideally you love being you. But when you look in the mirror there you are, regardless of how you feel about you. So you might as well get on with it and make the best of being you. Be a wiser, faster, fitter, stronger, funnier you. Be the best you that you can be. Or not (that's up to you).

The second stage of acceptance is that everyone else in the world is not you. As most of the people on this earth don't know you exist and never will they do not want to be you. Because they are not you they do not and will not ever think like you do. Or look like you or behave like you do. Concern yourself with them no more than you wish them to be concerned with you. You will never be able to make them like you, nor be like you. So stop trying to force yourself upon them.

My father is 80 years old and has never been a happy person. It was only quite recently that he accepted himself and became at least more contented than he has ever been. Leaving the behind the anger that comes from the fierce envy of others and the suffering that comes from desire to be someone better than himself - he is almost free.

But the second stage has so far eluded him.

Why? - he asks me constantly. Why do they do they think that way? How could they believe that? Why do they vote for them?

The answer is always the same and needs no elaboration. It's because they're not you, father. They are not you.

He hears me and he believes me and it silences him for a while but it does not last. Some small part of him holds out and I suspect will do so until he is no more. But that's him. He is not me.

In accepting ourselves and others we can be free of the need to govern the lives of others and concern ourselves only with governing of ourselves. To be the captains our own ships, to master our own fates without the interference of others seeking to re-make us in their image.

Remember you are free to be happy (or not, it's up to you)