A friend told me that years ago she was on a track relay team, and during a practice the coach noticed that she was looking over her shoulder right before she received the baton from her teammate. The coach said, “Don't look. Feel.” My friend wasn't trusting. The coach told her that in a relay, critical milliseconds were lost when she turned to look for the baton, when she really needed to be looking forward and running full speed, with faith that her partner would put the baton in her hand. She’d feel it and know it was there.
Understandably, we want to control the happiness in our lives and in our relationships, and that requires thinking. But thinking interferes with—often making impossible—feeling and trusting, which are essential elements in the foundation of happiness.
Thinking certainly is necessarily to our survival. We think to solve math problems, to follow a map, and to design a bridge. But when we want to be happy, we need to trust much more than think—trust the love of others and trust that love will produce happiness more consistently than anything else.
