Of course, you would like joy and happiness to be a constant, just the way you would like to have a full tank of gas all the time without having to stop at a gas station and fill up.

How you would love happiness to be a constant. Of course, happiness is not a benefactor from outside you. It certainly seems that life just shows up. Nonetheless, happiness is something you allow. As in a dance, by necessity, you go forward and back, this way and that, or there would be no dance.

You keep climbing a ladder. You are happy on a particular rung of the ladder, and then you want to climb higher and note new sights along the way. Nothing wrong with this. By all means, desire greater happiness.

Climbing to Greater Heights is not the same as being disgruntled with what you have or thinking you are owed a reward. You may think so. There is a part of you that wants to break previous records of happiness. Naturally you desire consistent elevating happiness, and you have had times of it, perhaps years of it, and then you hit a slump as a stock market purchase you are sure has declined in value. You are insatiable for more and more happiness.

Certainly, you may feel that you are simply an innocent recipient of happiness -- there is this aspect as well. Happiness is not an Act of Will. If happiness were an Act of Will, everyone on Earth would be decidedly happy right now. Happiness is so near and so far. It would seem that happiness arrives in spurts and starts, ebbs and recedes without your conscious say-so. Who would relish the drama of unhappiness? Nevertheless, there are many who seem to be.

It is possible to trust in living and loving without having to be in a constant flow of uproaring happiness. The Waves of the Ocean can toss you upon the High Seas. You can be swept onto a shore that is not of your wanting. Life does not always confer upon you what you want, nor does Life always confer the desires that the mainstream of the world considers as whopping successes for you either.

Of course, there are times when your mind does not know what it wants. That is, your mind can change its thoughts right and left. The mind explores possibilities. The mind goes through many scenarios, and your mind seems to whip you this way and that.

Beloveds, this is how you find yourself: You explore the directions you go on. In the process of being lost, this is how you begin to find yourself, know yourself, and to discover who you are and who you are not. It is yourself you find. No one goes in a straight line. Even mistakes propel you on your way, this way, not that way. Two steps to the left. Two steps to the right. Life is a dance, and no one, in terms of the world, has perfect footing.

You really do learn a lot in life. That you rue some of your decisions indicates your progress. There is a next step for you to take. It is not for you to walk forward looking back. Face front and keep walking in the direction of yourself.