There no key to happiness. The door is always open. -- Mother Teresa

"There no key to happiness. The door is always open." -- Mother Teresa

We were driving to work the other morning along the main drag into downtown from SW Portland. As we passed by one of the large billboard outside a religious establishment, our daughter mentioned how most of the time the quotes were not inspirational but rather judgmental. However, there was one exception that she noticed and remembered..."There is no key to happiness. The door is always open."

This quote stuck with me the whole day as I shared it with others. A simple truth. Happiness can be found at any time. There are two steps. A simple choice (rather than a complicated mechanism like a lock) and a simple action (to step over the threshold and into happiness). Although these steps are simple, they may not be easy. Many of us get stuck and are at some level aware of it, but more often we are completely unaware (i.e., we actually make the door invisible).

In the first step, we are stopped by choices we are unaware of that keep us unhappy (i.e., mistakenly going in the opposite direction to the doorway) or by thinking that we do not have a choice (i.e., actively slamming the door shut, and sticking a lock of our own on it). In the second step, we are stopped by choosing only to look through the doorway, admiring the view of happiness but not daring to make the step forward (i.e., settling for the status quo believing that happiness could never be possible for us, or being fearful of the steps we have to take to be happy).

One step you can take "through the doorway" is to come join your peers and experts as we look into these barriers and decisions we make around happiness at Happiness Camp PDX on Saturday 1st November (Facebook, Meetup, Tickets). Reserve your place now, space is limited.

Realize happiness is available to all of us at any time. We just have to remove the barriers WE place around the doorway, and make that step through.