“Just so long as we have not understood that true bliss is not in objects, but in us, we continue to place our hope in the future and keep racing ahead. We thus live in a state of imbalance, bent upon, and striving endlessly towards, the future.”

~ Jean Klein

As we get closer to the end of one year and the beginning of another, many of us are reflecting on what we want to change, fix, or achieve in the new year.

Why? To put it in broad strokes – because we want to be happy. We want to feel good more often, if not all the time.

There is nothing wrong with this desire.

The problem isn’t that we want to be happy, it’s that we are going about it in the wrong way. To be clear, when I say that we are going about it in the wrong way, I mean, in a way that just doesn’t work.

This is extremely important to recognize.

The possibility for a genuine realization of innate happiness, freedom and peace can only emerge to the extent that we have clearly seen that we’ve been going about our realization of happiness in the wrong way.

It just doesn’t work to keep postponing happiness until an object or achievement has been realized. It just doesn’t work to hold off on happiness until certain conditions have been met. This kind of happiness is usually very short-lived. It’s not the happiness, wellbeing and true inner peace that arises from within.

Many of us are not entirely aware of how much we equate happiness with how much control we feel we have over our life, circumstances, outcomes, people, and so on.

Most of us have not explored the extent to which we try to control life. But we all do it. We all try, in some way, to twist reality’s arm, to make the world, others, and ourselves appear the way we think it should appear.

It’s in this way, that we continually overlook the miracle of this present moment and superimpose it with an imagined future scenario that we believe will be “better” than what’s before us.

Little do we know that it’s this very dynamic that keeps us from accessing the deeper intelligence and wisdom that is always here and now, that can unlock our most deepest desires and true potential.

In the process of “creating miracles,” it’s wise to remember that life itself is the greatest miracle.

It's wise to remember that life itself is the greatest miracle. Click To Tweet

That you are alive, is a miracle. That you are aware, is a miracle. That you can think and experience the full spectrum of the human experience, is a miracle.

From my vantage point, the greatest gift that we can ever receive has already been given to us. Everything else, is just cherries on top.