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This is my entry in Jamilla’s Share Your Happy Moments With Jamy contest. Please visit Jamilla and say hello; she’s a wonderful person with a big heart!

Happiness has long been elusive for me. I have many happy moments to remember but one recent event in particular really stands out for me. It’s about letting go. What I mean is that by letting go of my expectations of others, I have learned about a fantastic new ability. I tend to get perturbed when people don’t understand or accept my point of view. I think many people experience this.

I thought I understood that it was up to me to be at peace with myself, but I really didn’t understand that. As many of you know, I suffer from depression. I tried anti-depressants and they didn’t help. I now talk to a psychiatrist, some of which is in a group therapy setting. This has helped me more than anything I have ever tried.

Talking to these people has been both powerful and profound. There are people from every walk of life - from doctors to store clerks - all there for one common goal. Just a few weeks ago, I would get irate when thinking about president George Bush. Sometimes it would literally make me angry. When I’d talk to people who disagreed with me, it would burn me up if they didn’t see it my way. Thus, I learned that I had to let go of those negative thoughts.

I don’t mean just ignoring my anger. I mean that I truly released myself from the grips of the root; the place where these thoughts were born. In one group therapy session, I argued with another person about these things. I told them, “If the world thought like me, there would be no war and people would never suffer from greed and many other things.”

My therapist laughed at me and said, “That is the absolute silliest thing I have ever heard. You aren’t even happy. You may have wonderful ideas, but the reality is, you cannot make others think the way you do.!”

We talked for several more minutes and it hit me. We all cracked up laughing and I really learned something. It’s one thing to understand a concept and another to actually employ it. Now, when I start discussing something and that knot starts building in my stomach, I just let go and smile.

It’s happened hundreds of times in the past week. I was able to catch myself! I have never been able to do that before - not to that degree of efficiency. I am not really learning anything new, but a new way to cope. That is the keyword: coping.

In order to experience happiness, we must be able to cope with all that life throws at us. I never once considered that I had poor coping skills in so many areas. It’s amazing to realize the truth. I am on the path to inner peace and no amount of money could compare to that feeling of liberation. I still have much more to learn but I feel certain about my progress.

As I wrote this very post, my blog went off line. I smiled and patiently waited for it to come back up. I realized I lost half of what I had written and I laughed - made a calibrated decision and finished up in my desktop editor to prevent the same occurrence. Because I remained calm, I was able to remember exactly what I wrote and simply retyped it. Now that is unbelievable. That my friends, is happiness.

I hope this post helps somebody out there. I must admit, writing this has been a wonderful experience. Thanks Jamy!