On video chats and in seminars and more, many times I have referred to the three legs of the Stool of Happiness, which is very important. I described one leg of the stool in the blog, "Work Makes Us Happy and Strong." but I realized that I had never written a blog about all three legs and how they function together. My mistake, which I will correct here.
Happiness is not something we seek. We don’t “find it” or set it as a goal. Rather, it is the natural result of putting together the pieces that naturally produce it. One way to think of happiness is that it is a stable stool upon which we can comfortably sit. There are three legs to the tripod or stool upon which our genuine happiness rests: feeling loved, being loving, and being responsible. No three-legged stool can stand if one leg is missing. If you put the three legs together properly, the stool naturally results.
The first leg is feeling loved. Nobody can be happy without first accomplishing this. We feel loved as we expose ourselves to people who have unconditional love to give, and as we trust their love. This has been discussed extensively throughout the Real Love literature, and you can find many references to this subject in the Master Index on the website.
Once we HAVE sufficient love—and feel it—we can then begin to love others. Loving is a miracle. The more I love you, the more I become part of the Infinite flow of the love that literally powers the universe. I refer to this as God’s love, but you can call it anything you want. The truth of its existence is simply undeniable, and the more we become congruent with that flow—which is especially effective as we love others—the more love we feel ourselves. It’s a divine, infinite kind of math: the more we give, the more we have.
In the blog above I talk more about the third leg of the Stool, which is responsibility. It includes being responsible for the things we need to do—go to work, clean the house, that kind of thing—but also responsibility for our own feelings and choices. You’ll find many references to responsibility in the Master Index.
If we diligently attend—one step at a time—to the three legs I’ve described, happiness WILL result. We don’t have to fabricate it. We just experience it—we enjoy it—as we consistently do the little things that lead to it, all the while avoiding the feelings and behaviors that make happiness impossible.
You can feel loved, be loving and responsible.
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