Happiness is the sensation of being created

If you’re a nature enthusiast, you may have noticed that the cleanest, purest looking water is always the water that is moving. Ponds are gross. The water sits there and gathers algae and all kinds of filth - those who choose to have one in their backyards have to treat it with chemicals every year if they want to keep it clean. Rivers and streams don’t need it - they are constantly flowing out to somewhere, and it keeps the water from growing stagnant.

Our lives are like this. It is not enough to settle into a particular role – the role must feel new. Clean water may start as dew on a mountain side, trickling down into a mountain stream, then a valley river, and into a sea. So it is with life – if I am not becoming something, if I am not "being created," I am going to feel polluted.

A life marked by routine - a predictable life in which one rarely meets the unexpected and does not provide the challenge of learning and growing - is comfortable, not happy. Being created is about constantly becoming a new person. The delight of a child in seeing something for the first time, and crying "Again! Again!" is not entirely lost for the adult who is looking for it. Though a river has a relatively constant direction, it always moves back and forth in an “S” shape, giving it variety as it makes its inevitable journey to the sea. This simple principle is realized in the life of a person who seeks something new in the experience of every day. Being created doesn’t require a drastic change in career, nor does it require taking on a new life-long friendship. It might require learning a new way to work that passes by an area you’ve never seen before, or listening to someone on the bus you may be tempted to ignore.

As anything that is created out of lesser material, you will become a greater, more complete person as you allow yourself to take on and assimilate all the experiences life has to offer. All it requires is an open mind (in the truest sense of the term, meaning "being willing to listen to new ideas" rather than "to disapprove of very little" as it is used today) and some flexibility. Experiencing more of life, by some strange paradox, allows you to appreciate it better rather than becoming bored of it. This is because you grow in your awareness of how much there is to experience: your world becomes bigger rather than smaller. Something new and exciting is suddenly brought closer to you, rather than seeming so far away.

Happiness is constantly new, and it is right around the corner.

"Be water, my friend." - Bruce Lee