Happiness is a choice

In Richard Bach’s novel, Illusions, there is a question: If God appears to you and commands you to be happy, what will you do? The novel doesn’t give any explicit answers except that happiness is your choice.

The novel is about a man who is an incarnation of God. Donald Shimoda was sent by God to be the messiah of the modern world. But he quits the job. He doesn’t want to drink that bitter cup. Anyway, saving the world is just another illusion. People don’t want salvation. If they did, the world would have been a paradise long ago. Isn’t every religion worth the name teaching its believers salvation? Yet why have the believers not saved themselves? Because they don’t want salvation. They want miracles. People come to Donald for miracles. He becomes a prestidigitator and that’s not his job. So he quits. “It’s not my will, but yours, that matters,” God tells him.

Donald chooses to be happy. He is happy with simple things. “If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production of it, you just relax and remove it from your thinking,” he says. Change the way you look at the cloud. Change your perspective. Look at the wild flower that is growing at the end of the slag heap on which you are sitting. Pick up the flower. Follow its trail. You discover a different path. You choose your cup instead of letting God impose one on you. You drink the cup of your choice. You savour it. That’s how you choose happiness.

The world won’t be happy with you, however. But making the world happy is not your job. Living your life is your job. Picking your chalice and drinking from that is your job. “Anybody who’s ever mattered, anybody who’s ever been happy, anybody who’s ever given any gift to the world has been a divinely selfish soul, living for his own best interest. No exceptions.”

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