Proverbs on Happiness

October 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on the nature of happiness.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Happiness is another term for inner peace.

2. One achieves inner peace through harmony between what one does and what one believes.

3. Thus while outer events might make one happy or sad, happiness itself is entirely internal, and at all times completely within one's power.

4. This does not mean, however, that happiness is easy. It requires wisdom, discipline, and love.

5. Wisdom comes slowly, through the scrupulous pursuit of truth over time. Thus what one believes is never certain, but can always be sincere.

6. Discipline enables one to acquire habits in tune with one's beliefs. Behavior flows from character, which, like a mansion, is built of thousands of details, or acts, each judged not only for itself but for its contribution to the whole.

7. Love is the choice to open one's arms to life, enabling one to embrace imperfection. From it flow empathy, compassion, generosity, and acceptance. The opposite of love is fear.

8. To be happy, one must love oneself as well as others.

9. Because inner peace or harmony is never perfect, happiness is never achieved, and is always a question of more or less.

10. The inner and outer worlds are mirrors. How one shapes one's inner world through will shapes one's perception of the outer world. Thus an unhappy person is likely to perceive a world of lust, greed, and lies, whereas a happy one is likely to perceive a world of people struggling in the grip of love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happpr.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 25: Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness