A friend of mine runs life enhancing workshops for a U3A group in the UK.  U3A, also known as the University of the Third Age, offers life-enriching and life-changing opportunities for retired and semi-retired people. We’re talking here of the 50+ age group and well into the 80’s, I imagine. People come together and learn together for the sheer joy of learning.

‘What would you like to get from our time together?’ my friend asked her first gathering of about 5 people.   The replies astounded me.

• What’s missing in my life?
• How do I get rid of the guilt and blame?
• Inner resilience.
• What’s my purpose? Why am I here?

I was gob-smacked to hear this.

My first reaction was ‘these people have lived full lives. Surely they have these things sorted?!’

My second reaction was one of sadness. That people come so far or have lived so many years and there is still a gap, a deep need that hasn’t been met, hasn’t been fulfilled, something elusive that keeps tugging at a deep level: ‘Find me, feed me; find me, feed me.’

My third reaction was one of surprise at myself.  What makes me think that just because someone is 50+ they have their life sorted? That they have no more questions about life or the desire to enhance and enrich their lives? What makes me think that at that age and stage of life they would   know themselves and be grounded?

What an eye opener for me to realise that though I advocate being non-judgmental and not making assumptions, I still do…  Hmmm…  Interesting thought that I should think that…

There are many stories of people who have made it to the top of their careers or business, desperately unhappy at the pinnacle of success and wondering why. The lucky ones went on to discover  that true happiness is only really experienced within. Too many people still don’t know how to find this true happiness.

We tend to look outside ourselves.

Back in the day when I was at school … In those days in South Africa you started in Sub A, Sub B, then standards 1 to 5 in primary and standards 6 to 10 in high school. I remember being about 11 years old in Std 3 and thinking ‘I will be big and grown up when I am in Std 5!’

Then when I got to Std 5, it was ‘It’s not so big and grown up after all. Wait till next year when I’m in high school!’ And when I got to Std 6, I realised there was more to go. ‘Oh, just wait till I am 18 and in Std 10! I will be proper grown up then!’ And so it went on … ‘when I have a job, earn my own money, drive my own car.’

I don’t know when I stopped thinking in this way, ‘I’ll be happy when…’ ‘I’ll be grown up when…’ Perhaps I still think so in ways that I am not even conscious of.

There is nothing wrong with striving, having a goal, wanting to achieve something. It’s when we think that’s the thing that will make us happy, contented and satisfy our curiosity about life’s big questions that it becomes a problem. When we get to the end of it and still the emptiness eludes us; when we do it because we are chasing happiness.

Happiness is within us. We are born happy. As Robert Holden, director of The Happiness Project says, ‘Happiness is your original nature. It is YOU minus your neurosis. ’

Circumstances and our thinking obscure what is already there.  

And that’s where my friend comes in…  She’ll help the members in her group get insights into their lives and nature of their thinking which will open the way for a changed outlook, a fresh perspective; transformation as they peel back some of that neurosis Robert Holden talks about.

It requires willingness. It requires openness. And it requires acceptance, because nothing can make you happy if you won’t accept that happiness already exists within you.