Sometimes all that's needed is your own true angle of view...

These passages from The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelhlo resonated with me today. As 2013 winds up, I hope you have the time and space to wind down and fully experience this unique adventure of being alive, remembering that, ultimately, everything is in balance.

"Everything is at once so simple and so complicated! It's simple because all it takes is a change of attitude: I'm not going to look for happiness any more. From now on, I'm independent; I see life through my eyes and not through other people's. I'm going in search of the adventure of being alive.”

Sometimes all that's needed is your own true angle of view...

"And it’s complicated: why am I not looking for happiness when everyone has taught me that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing? Why am I going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking?

After all, what is happiness?

Love, they tell me. But love doesn’t bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, its a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we’re doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.

All right then, peace. Peace? If we look Nature, there is no peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and the moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who’s afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.

Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop work. But then they’re more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that’s true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money wont necessarily bring happiness

I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness, now what I want is joy. Joy is like sex – it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contended, but happiness?

I no longer fall into that trap.”

~Paulo Coelhlo, The Witch of Portobello