Why do we live? What are we here for? Day after day we asked these questions of the purpose and meaning of our lives. And most of us constantly look for the answer. How can we achieve happiness? This is yet another question urging us to look for its answer every day. What if the answer to those questions is simple? What if it is all simply about ONE thing? Connection. The secret of happiness is explained thoroughly in the clear and refreshing voice of Masami Sato in this excerpt of her book, ONE.

What are we trying to find out?

There are a host of things that we do in our lives.

But have we ever thought about why we do what we do? What are we really looking for?

The world throngs with millions of people of all races, religions, and belief systems, doing myriad things. People look different from each other and behave differently. We have widely varying interests and outlook on life. We communicate in different ways, because we use different languages. We have different hopes and emotions.

Nevertheless, if there was ONE thing that ALL of us are searching for, what could that be?

As I travelled around the world, I often asked people a simple question, \”What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?\”

At first, it seemed everyone was looking for different things as they randomly said, \”Good job\”, \”My own house\”, \”A nice partner\”, \”A loving family\”, \”A soul mate\”, \”More money\”, \”Wealth\”. \”Freedom\”, \”Peace of mind\”, \”A life purpose\” There were many more answers.

I did notice that some of these requirements were of a more earthly nature while others were of a permanent nature. Earthly desires are those that we want because we do not yet have it, or think that we do not yet have it. As against this, permanent desires are not about getting things we do not have. It is about a \’feeling\’ that we yearn for, so that it does not come to an end, whatever we get or accomplish at every moment or our lives.

If one could just remove all earthly desires from our list and look at only permanent desires, it would be obvious that we just want to continue feeling positive sensations like excitement, happiness, inspiration, motivation, munificence, affection, joy etc. – put in other words, we want to continue being happy.

Delightfulness

Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.

Life is a mystery we are all living in. We all may love it in our own special ways. We may despise it in different ways. We may question it. We may treasure it. Or we may just have it, accept it, indifferently. But what is the purpose of our lives? What if the secret of our existence is so near? What if the secret actually brings us happiness and contentment when we discover it?

What if the essence of the aim of our lives, and its joys, is as simple as this:

It is all about relationship.

Connection is everything

Everything depends on bonding. All things are part of some other things. A look at our own lives would say it all. Then we will begin to see the real purpose of life.

Why do we do something, ANYTHING in life as human beings?

It is mainly because we want to bond more and more. We make fiends to feel bonded. We get married for bonding with another person in a firm and lasting manner. We raise a family to feel even more bonded. We go out and meet people to bond well with them, not only for getting advantages out of that bonding, but also to feel more bound to the world.

We get ourselves good clothes or go to a beauty parlour to bond better with our physical appearance or aesthetical sense. We choose to try out different types of food to bond better with our sense of savour and aroma. We dine out to get on better with people we would be sharing the meal with. We buy mobiles and computers to bond better with the entire world and its people. We read books and newspapers to remain connected to what is happening around and what others are going through. We study things and learn things to bond better with knowledge that others value.

Every thing that we do is to satisfy the need of keeping alive relationships. It is our relationship to our own body that makes it imperative that we eat and sleep. Because of our relationship to our senses, we are asked to do things to satisfy the demands that body makes. If we ignore the demands that body makes, we have to bear the resultant aches and distress. And above our mundane needs, we yearn for another relationship – a relationship to our very existence – a relationship to our purpose. And without that connection, it is vacant. Just like the blankness so many of us feel when we have no relationship even to ourselves. That is just not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.

Bonds are powerful, and yet they are fragile and tender

When we cannot feel the intimacy in a relationship, we opt for separation, divorce, quarrels, judgement, and disapproval. It never feels good to lose the intimacy in a relationship. Nevertheless, it is possible to fall in love with someone one day and fall out of love with the same person the next day. The feeling can alter just by a flick of a finger. And the flick might be by your finger or theirs!

When the bonds are not there

When the relationship is not there, we start seeing problems. We start seeing differences and hindrances. We start sitting upon judgement of others and disapproving them. We exaggerate, concentrate upon, and give energy to such things that we see as problems. Under such a scenario, these problems might turn inwards and inflict pain and disapproval on ourselves. We cannot be fully happy when we have no associations with anything.

Connection: the Secret to Happiness

What about if we looked at the whole concept in reverse? When we do that we discover this simple truth: we cannot feel unhappy when we are feeling totally connected. It\’s impossible!

Try to feel grouchy when we have a good relationship with the people around us and smiling and sharing things completely. Even when we have \’problems\’ in life, we can still smile together and feel delighted when we are bound together in a good relationship. At the same time, it is hard to be happy if we do not have that edifying relationship.

Connection: Our Life

Relationship is the core of everything. That is what life is. Relationship.

Everything is a unified whole of smaller units. Everything combines together to form a bigger unit; the way our bodies are a fusion of smaller entities like atoms, molecules, cells and organs.

Our acts and options also is an expression of the need for a relationship. We are meant to continuously find out ways to relate to each other and to a higher objective.

Relationship and Religion

Some of us opt to be part of various religions to feel better bonded. This bonding that they seek could be to God. It may be to the people with the same convictions. When we share a similar credence, there is a greater feeling of being bound to the people in that group. More awarding and handing over takes place among people who are feeling strong bonds with each other.

Bonding and Business

Many people begin an enterprise to feel better bonded to themselves by being in control of their fate. But often in the entrepreneurial world, we end up being more and more segregated especially when we start viewing other ventures as contenders, staff as instruments and customers as a money flow. But the basic point of why we got into the venture was to feel the power of that bonding. So, why do we need to fashion that disconnection at all? May be in the perfect world, all business ventures worked differently, but hand in hand.

Connection and Wars

Some of us even create arguments or wars to experience some sense of \’victory\’ or supposedly a greater sense of security and significance. But ironically, this rebounds. The moment we \’win\’ the battle, we are actually more disconnected from others. We now need more security to protect ourselves from being attacked by others. We somehow end up being more insecure and afraid. We can\’t laugh at this because it actually happens to almost every one of us in different ways.

It may be the arguments we have with people around us. It may be the negative judgement we make when we feel something or someone is wrong. When we try to be the only one to win, we can never win in the real way-we feel disconnected. We can only truly celebrate the victory with others when we win together. Then we feel connected.

Despite the varied ways in which our needs are expressed, everything we do is to satisfy the yearning we have to feel and have a strong relationship.

The complete experience of relationship is only felt through our heart. We can build a relationship with anybody when we truly care for them, and feeling that association with them. If we know this, forming that needed state is not difficult, but just simple and amusing. Then we would really feel more pleasure and contentment.

Life is like a play. We act things and feel things in a play but actually, the aim of the play is to derive pleasure out of it. It is not about acting out things, doing things. When the curtain falls finally, the winners are the ones who have experienced joy by acting. Not the ones who received more applause in the end. The effects and upshots of a play in which we acted do not affect our real life. But if we lost all our life to act in a play just because we wanted to be the best actor there, would it make us the best actor of the play?

It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.

We have no idea when this game began and when it would be over, all that we know is that it commenced in the past and that it will be over one day. When finally the umpire blows the whistle to stop the game, we can simply say, \”Wow, it was a lot of fun. Let us play once again!\”

In the sports of life, the aim of the game is to establish a relationship. We can keep connecting until we all unite to become one. It is the one way to constantly feel the relationship to our objective – the feeling of pleasure and delight. We cannot feel detached from the relationship to anything or refuse and conclude even one thing if we are to achieve a lasting relationship.

Life is as uncomplicated as that. There is just ONE secret.

And the secret is to bond.

To turn into ONE

To find pleasure.

Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing. Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory