Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

I like a paradox, as they contain truth. Every light casts a shadow and we do not care too much for the darkness of things, but often the darkness gives us the true meaning of its essence. How true this is with music? How many great songs are written by people who are not particularly great on the instruments they play? In fact for many, being a great player is a draw back for a writer, with only a few exceptions, such as Hendrix and Clapton.  

To succeed, don’t try to succeed. When you give up measuring yourself by your markers of success it flows more freely. This is something sighted by entrepreneurs that money becomes a marker not the goal, often the goal will be something less obvious like the challenge of making something happen, or what success would enable you to do.

Better to focus the mind on things that success would afford you, instead of the success itself. So for the pupil and the teacher, do not focus on the grade, but what the grade will enable you to do. Seeing oneself playing in a band that performs a particular style of music that requires that level of knowledge, is a better motivator than the examination day and the piece of paper at the end of it.

The mind seems to have a way of flagging up possibilities of acquiring the ways and means of achieving that possibility. I often use the story of buying a new car, once you have made the decision on which model and which colour you are going to buy one starts to see that colour and that model everywhere. We are alert to the possibilities of acquiring that which we desire.

Thought Experiment

‘Once we have a belief system the unconscious will find evidence of the truth of that belief in the world around us’. Now if we take this as a fact for the time being, it means that the things that appear to be wholly true are maybe just a fabrication of how we think. So use this to believe something different, something better. See what happens, be observant to possibilities that come your way.

Now if you take those things as a flow of possibilities, don’t grasp at them but let them come to you. See if that changes your ‘normal’, often the desire for something shows its lack in your life, and that might be holding you back.

 So back to the happiness: by searching out the result of happiness such as being with friends, having connections with family, the feeling of support and assistance, this is where happiness can be found.

So success with music is giving success to others, happiness can be found by giving happiness to others ………………………