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Why do we live? What are we here for? Day after day we asked these questions of the purpose and meaning of our lives. And most of us constantly look for the answer. How can we achieve happiness? This is yet another question urging us to look for its answer every day. What if the answer to those questions is simple? What if it is all simply about ONE thing? Connection. The secret of happiness is explained thoroughly in the clear and refreshing voice of Masami Sato in this excerpt of her book, ONE.
What are we searching for?
There are a host of things that we do in our lives.
Still, have we ever considered why we do what we are doing? What in fact are we searching for?
The world now is full of billions of us coming from different races, countries, religions and beliefs all doing different things. We all look different and act quite differently. We have different interest and attitude from others. We communicate differently often using different languages. We have different desire and feelings.
Nevertheless, if there was ONE thing that ALL of us are searching for, what could that be?
While I journeyed all over the world, I asked people a seemingly straightforward question, “What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?”
At first, it seemed everyone was looking for different things as they randomly said, “Good job”, “My own house”, “A nice partner”, “A loving family”, “A soul mate”, “More money”, “Wealth”. “Freedom”, “Peace of mind”, “A life purpose” There were many more answers.
I actually noticed that some of these things are temporal desires and some are more permanent desires. Temporal desire means we want it because we do not have it yet or we don’t think we have it yet. On the other hand, permanent desire is not about attaining things we do not have. It is about the ‘feeling’ we seek so this does not end no matter what we get or achieve at each moment of our life.
If we take off the temporal desires from the list and look only at the permanent desires, it is clear that all we want is to continue experiencing positive feelings like exhilaration, enjoyment, encouragement, motivation, kindness, love, happiness etc. - in another way, we want to remain happy.
Happiness
Happiness is one state of emotion that we are all longing to be in. We all may define it differently. We may value it differently. We may experience it at different levels of intensity. But we surely have something in common when happiness comes to us. And when we discover this secret about happiness, we hold the power to be happier, and to make others around us experience the same feeling too.
The life that we are living is a mystery. We all may love it in one way or another. We may also disapprove of it in different ways. We may ask questions about it. We may value it immensely. Or we may just have it, in a nonchalant manner. But what exactly is the purpose of our life? What if the very truth of our existence is about to be revealed? What if this truth really brings us happiness and satisfaction when we discover it?
What if the essence of the aim of our lives, and its joys, is as simple as this:
It is all about connection.
Connection is everything
Everything is about connecting. Everything is part of everything else. If we look at our own life, it says it all. Then we will start to see the real purpose of our life.
Why do we do anything, ANYTHING at all, in life as humans?
It is just because we want to connect to others. We make friends to build a relationship. We get married to establish a relationship in a deeper and more permanent manner. We create a family to further strengthen that relationship. We go out to meet more people to connect with them, not only to get benefits out of those relationships, but also to become more connected to the world.
We buy nice clothes and go to a hairdresser to feel more connected to our sense of aesthetics and to our own physical beauty. We eat a variety of food to feel more connected to our sense of taste and smell. We dine out to feel connected to the people we share the meals with. We buy mobile phones and computers to connect with others and the world. We read newspapers and magazines to stay connected to what is happening and what others are doing and feeling. We study and learn to connect with what others know and value.
All that we do is done to satisfy the need for that bonding. If we have no bonds with our own body, we do not even need to sleep or eat. Our bonds to all our senses tell us to do certain things to satisfy the demands that the body makes. If we disregard these pleas of our body, we feel pain and discomfort. And over and above our basic needs, we search for a bonding of a loftier type - the bonding to our existence - the bonding to our purpose. And without those bonds, it is just bare. Just like the barrenness many of us feel within when we have no bonds even to ourselves. It is just not the right way we are supposed to live our lives.
Bonds are powerful, and yet they are fragile and tender
When the bonds in a relationship lose strength, we go in for a separation, divorce, disagreements, judgement, and bitterness. It never feels good to lose the bonding. Still, it possible to be in love with someone today, and totally disconnected and bitter towards him tomorrow. And this change of feelings can happen just by the flicker of an eyelid. And the eyes might be yours or theirs!
When we feel disconnected
When the relationship is not there, we start seeing problems. We start seeing differences and hindrances. We start sitting upon judgement of others and disapproving them. We exaggerate, concentrate upon, and give energy to such things that we see as problems. Under such a scenario, these problems might turn inwards and inflict pain and disapproval on ourselves. We cannot be fully happy when we have no associations with anything.
Relationship: the Secret to Happiness
What about if we looked at the whole concept in reverse? When we do that we discover this simple truth: we cannot feel unhappy when we are feeling totally connected. It’s impossible!
Try to feel moody when we feel the security of our bonding to the people around us and laughing and enjoying with our whole heart. Even if we have our own fair share of difficulties in life, we would still be able to break into a laugh and enjoy and feel good when the bonds are strong. At the same time, we would be unable to enjoy things when those bonds are absent.
Bonding: Our Life
Bonding is the core of all things. That is what life is about. Bonding.
Everything is a unified whole of smaller units. Everything combines together to form a bigger unit; the way our bodies are a fusion of smaller entities like atoms, molecules, cells and organs.
Our actions and choices also express the need for connection. We are designed to constantly seek ways to connect to each other and to a greater purpose.
Relationship and Religion
Some of us have opted to become a part of different religious systems to feel better related to each other. The relationship that we yearn to build could be to God. It could be to those who share the same belief system. When there is the sharing of a similar conviction, there is a stronger relationship within that group. More bestowing on each other takes place among people who feel related to each other.
Bonding and Business
People start a business to feel a stronger relationship to themselves by having better mastery over their destiny. But quite often in the world of entrepreneurship, there is a greater sense of isolation especially when we start seeing other enterprises as rivals, staff as devices and customers as a source of income. With all that, the main reason for getting into the business was to establish a relationship. So why should we cause any secluding at all? Maybe in an ideal world, all enterprises worked in another way, but jointly.
Connection and Wars
Some of us even raise arguments or wars to feel some sense of ‘triumph’ or what is a heightened sense of safety and importance. But strangely, this ricochets. The minute we ‘win’ the fight, we are in fact weakening the relationship. We now require more sureness to defend ourselves from being assaulted by others. We thus end up being more unsure and frightened. We cannot take it lightly as it really happens to almost all of us in one form or another.
It may be the differences of opinion we have with people around us. It may be the wrong conclusions we reach at when we decide another person is wrong. When we want to be the only person to triumph, it will not be a victory in the true sense of the word - there would be no bonding. We can only rejoice when we succeed in unison. Then we feel the strong bond.
Despite the varied ways in which our needs are expressed, everything we do is to satisfy the yearning we have to feel and have a strong relationship.
The real sense of connection comes only through our heart. We can connect with anybody when we are truly caring for them and feeling connected with them. If we know this, creating the desired state is actually simple, easy and fun. Then we would naturally experience more happiness and joy.
Life is like a play. We act things and feel things in a play but actually, the aim of the play is to derive pleasure out of it. It is not about acting out things, doing things. When the curtain falls finally, the winners are the ones who have experienced joy by acting. Not the ones who received more applause in the end. The effects and upshots of a play in which we acted do not affect our real life. But if we lost all our life to act in a play just because we wanted to be the best actor there, would it make us the best actor of the play?
It is easy to make out this in the background of competing in sports, but we often do not realize it in the sports and games of real life. We forget so fast that life is also a form of sports.
Even if we don’t know when this game actually started and when it would end, we know that it somehow started in the past and it will end someday. When we close the lid of the game box eventually one day, can we simply say, “Wow, it was so much fun. Let’s play again!”
In the sports of life, the aim of the game is to establish a relationship. We can keep connecting until we all unite to become one. It is the one way to constantly feel the relationship to our objective - the feeling of pleasure and delight. We cannot feel detached from the relationship to anything or refuse and conclude even one thing if we are to achieve a lasting relationship.
Life is as easy as that. There is only ONE secret.
And the secret is to connect.
To grow into ONE
To relish.
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