When I was a kid, I had a book that had a photograph on every page with the caption: “What’s wrong with this picture?” I spent hours with that book, scanning every page looking for a window that opened the wrong way or a door that was missing a knob.  I got an incredible rush of satisfaction in discovering what was missing, what was wrong.

I sometimes still do that. Most of us do. Instead of seeing what’s there, we scan our lives looking for what’s broken, what’s missing, what could be added.  We are sure that if we fix what’s missing, then we will be happy.

This is a popular perception of happiness – to believe it’s something vulnerable, something that can be taken away from us. This keeps us in the striving cycle, needing to acquire the next thing.  What that thing is – a new house,  a new level of spiritual clarity, a new record of Facebook friends, a new world-changing project – doesn’t really matter. It’s the striving that brings us that hit of pleasure.

True, deeply-seated happiness – or joy or stillness or bliss or whatever word you prefer – isn’t the same as pleasure.  It’s not necessary that joy, stillness and satisfaction be separate from suffering.  Awareness of this allows us to keep doing our work with an open heart.  It allows us to meet life where it actually is, not where we imagine it should be.