This afternoon, before I started writing this, I read the Russell Conwell lecture "Acres Of Diamonds" and got the message I always got, only again, in a slightly different way. Thinking about the nature of happiness and fulfillment, not so much contentment (too much contentment is unhealthy), happiness and knowing that you are fulfilled is an inside job. The genuinely empty outside job is just getting more "stuff" and "wealth" without at all noticing it inside yourself. Yet you just see the gain "on paper" outside yourself in empty amazement, like "how lucky can I get!" But, to be fulfilled genuinely, you must notice and understand fully what is going on inside as well as outside. That is the giant rub. I do not use the word "understand" very lightly, although to some, it may sound like I do. When I say, "I understand" to a friend I work with seemingly casually, do not be fooled, there is some deep, and powerful meaning and consciousness there taking nothing and nobody for granted.

Happiness is knowing genuinely what you have and what you are, not "gaining, gaining, gaining" empty life trophies that fly away with the wind once you do an outer wrong genuinely, small or large. The most genuine right you can do yourself is attentive understanding that is genuinely sensitive and takes nothing for granted, the rest is "empty, sticky stamp collecting" without that.

Thinking about that reality deeply is a start. But we must first appreciate our lives before we can get honestly rich in what we genuinely desire in existence as a totality and not just life.

Sure, I could make this simple for you where you do not have to think, where the knowledge pours into your head without you having to pay attention until the very end where you go "I get it!", but what would that be worth? I want you to think about it all, all the way through the article, and have that "pure realization" in a balanced, productive way. After all, to go through a movie asleep while sitting in the movie while it is going on is a waste of money, movies about spiritual enlightenment ? I learned that lesson in 1982 when I saw the movie Gandhi with my family, my Mom, Dad, only sister and a few other members. I figured, I am going to force myself to watch the movie and not go to sleep because my parents went through all this trouble to get me and the family to go to this thing. Actually it was a great and inspiring movie, about an even more complex interesting and better man, From Mohandas K. Gandhi, lawyer in a suit, to Mahatma Gandhi, the liberator with a message and more power than any politician with all the bullets, guns, traditional living "at the top" and the whole armada of silly power games at their disposal (I remember the role of actor Sir John Gielgud in the role of an English Lord), although the ending was seemingly tragic with a man saying "Gandhiji, I am your follower, and this is for the best!" and giving him a bullet as a gift, and Gandhi said, "Oh, no." sounding a lot like Sir Ben Kingsley. But over the years, I have understood the message deeper and deeper. I have since seen the movie "Gandhi" on DVD, and in my memories, but back to the full on point of this article to end it:

Happiness is within and without, within first as a cause, then without as an effect. It cannot be any other way. Your mindfulness, soul filled strength and spirituality make your happiness and ironically that is the biggest inside job of all from within you. If you read this seriously, you are ready to win yourself.

My name is Joshua Clayton, I am a freelance writer based in Inglewood, California. I also write under a few pen-names and aliases, but Joshua Clayton is my real name, and I write by that for the most part now. I am a philosophical writer and objective thinker and honest action taker. I also work at a senior center in Gardena, California as my day job, among other things, but primarily I am a writer.