COLLEGE PARK, MD –
Developing our spiritual eyesight is necessary to happiness. Without doing so we are walking around with an eye patch impeding our vision.
As such we will bump into things, fall down, and generally lack depth perception in our lives.
This is true of all human beings to one degree or another, but how much our second eye is developed is a good indicator of how acute the issue is.
Priorities
What we’re talking about here is getting our priorities in order. As long as we put our submission to God in the background, all we’ll be able to see is this world and its trappings.
Forgetfulness of God will surely ensue. That predicament is the killer of happiness.
We have to firmly commit to placing our submission to God ahead of all other aspects of our worldly lives. That is remembrance of Him.
The awareness that flows from that remembrance leads to right action, God willing. That is kinetic faith.
That is when our lives change.
Confusion
The trouble is that many of us get confused about our priorities, setting off a chain reaction of misery. We place ourselves at the mercy of our grade point averages, salaries, families, friends – the list goes on and on.
Most of the time, those things have little mercy. They usually don’t carry any intrinsic fulfillment with them, either. Through attaching ourselves to these worldly pursuits we’re left for dead – without a trace. No one knows why.
So and so has everything, why is he/she unhappy? I have attained all my goals, why don’t I feel satisfied?
Clarity
When we do this we are measuring intangible states such as happiness, fulfillment, presence, and the like by tangible benchmarks.
There is a great disconnect there.
To get on the scent of why we feel how we feel, we must get our priorities straight. Our holistic internal well-being is our number one priority. Attaining that requires devotion to our internal Source (God) – the Source of mercy and fulfillment.
Our external well-being in the form of grades, jobs, houses, and procreation should rightfully take their back seats to our internal well-being.
Happiness is judged by our internal well-being.
If we leverage our external well-being to aid in our internal well-being we have kept our spiritual vision in balance. If it becomes an end in and of itself we will lose sight of our primary needs.
For example, if we use our jobs as an opportunity to express gratitude and appreciation that we have them and spend the money we make from them justly, we will have leveraged that job in a way where it supports our internal well-being.
However, if we see our jobs as ends in and of themselves, something that can grant us fulfillment intrinsically, we will be let down every time. We will be left wondering what went wrong.
Accepting a worldview in which tending to our well-being is done by way of “achievements” will leave our number one need buried without a trace.
Getting our priorities in order will give us clues as to where our happiness lies and then it is up to us if we’re willing to pick up a shovel and dig it up.
Mindfully,
Tarif