Get High on Happiness:
Monthly Mysticism with Max
By Max Weiman
Kabbalah Made Easy, Inc.

The Mechanics of Happiness
You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness.

Nothing confuses the issue of emotions more than when we over-intellectualize them. But how can we use a tool we don’t understand? We can if we intuitively grasp its use and do it. However, for most of us who must put in a daily effort to be ecstatic, we need some brain power behind us. So let’s over-intellectualize happiness for a moment.
 
By the way, this brings up an interesting issue or side point. How much effort should be necessary for happiness? If I asked you how much effort should be necessary for a college degree, or to make a million dollars in business, you’d say quite a bit. And yet people labor for years for these things in vain hopes that it will make them happy. And it doesn’t. Yet somewhere inside us we believe that true happiness should be effortless. We shouldn’t have to work for it. We are a little bit schizophrenic or something when it comes to happiness. If you really want to be happy for the rest of your life, get this through your head. It’s going to take some effort.
 
Okay, now back to the intellect. Have you ever analyzed happiness? If it’s something you really want, it pays to understand it. How many different kinds of happiness are there? Joy. Elation. Ecstasy. Feeling good. Feeling motivated. There are many. So when you say to yourself that you want happiness, which type of happiness are you really after? I suspect we all want all of them.
 
Deep down inside we’re looking for a positive attitude and a feeling of serenity. I wouldn’t call this happiness, but I think that’s what all people are really after when they say they want happiness.
 
In the meantime, if you’re convinced you want the “smiley-faced joy type of happiness,” then let’s address this. There seems to be two distinct time periods for happiness. One is leading up to getting or accomplishing something deeply important to you. The other is basking in the moment of achievement. We are in a state of happiness already when we are anticipating the accomplishment, and then when we actually get it, whoosh! It hits us full force.
 
Tip for this month:
Identify for yourself the accomplishment you want to achieve and start taking pleasure and happiness in every concrete step you take toward your goal.

His recent book A Simple Guide to Happiness: From a Mystical Perspective, is available at local area synagogues, bookstores, and specialty shops.