I am the master of my happiness

We cannot control what will happen to us and how other will behave toward us. One day, you could get warming interaction with other, another day, hostile interaction comes you way. A seemingly rude email, un-called for finger pointing or even bullying. It is easy to get upset and have our blood pressure shoot through the roof and get all tense. It may ruin our day. This is so unpleasant.

It does not need to be that way. My happiness is totally under my control as long as I can look at the things I cannot control in a different way. The rude email may have merit or may not. It is not directly at me. Who am I anyway? It is the ego at work. The person may or may not try to hurt your feeling or get back at you so they feel better. Let's them be. As Buddha said "if a person does not accept the gift, the gift belongs back to the giver". Same apply here. Don't accept it. Otherwise, it fall into that the other people wanted, to hurt your feeling or whatever way to harm you. A couple simple step when we are in these situation:

1) Recall Buddha's teaching about the "gift". Say to yourself, I don't accept it, now it belong back to the sender.
2) Feel a sense of accomplishment that you have help the other person to vent or make them feel better, at no cost to you. In fact, it provide a way for you to practice.
3) Feel compassion of the offender that the person is trapped in anger and ignorance.
4) Don't let revenge over power you. It is the worst that could happen.

That is all. I am the master of my happiness.

We make it up! Like child's play.

At work, we are driven by mandates from the big boss. Got to get the bug count to zero by this Friday. Got to resolve all the violations and pass all the tests by this weekend. All these translate into actions and drive people's schedule, mental state, stress level and even family life. Got to work this weekend to make the deliverables. This constructs the world we live in, affect the world of people around us, we are boxed in.

It is clear this is just someone's mandate that construct the reality that we perceived. Have he in a different mode, we may not have the weekend deadline. This is all make up, for reason, of course. The point is, every other thing we know are make up like this. The upcoming holiday, we feel happy, it is make up in my mind. Why December is special? If you like, you can make July feel like Christmas. Why passing of a relative make us sad? Sure, we can be with them anymore. But do we really understanding the truth of someone passing away? Is our feeling the same conditioned one like Christmas in December?

Why should you feel mad when someone honk at you for no good reason? Why should you feel stressed with the tight deadline that need you to work weekend? It is all make up, by ourselves or others. There is no inherent truth to this. That being said, we still have to live in this worldly world and operate. How do you face such challenges? Well, as long as you understanding that as long as you have tried your best with best intention, whatever happen or come your way will be ok. Everything is just as fine as it is, even adversity comes, accept it.