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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