We all grew up with many ideas thrust upon us, coming from family, friends, education and general life experience.

One of the most pervasive ideas that was floating around "back then" (and now too) is the notion that once certain things were achieved, and certain thresholds crossed, that one had a reasonable expectation of living "happily ever after." This idea was applied to the personal front(re marriage or finding the right person), the education front( if only I could get into the right school...) and the career front too(once I snag that job, all is well).

However true those ideas may have been(and I am not doubting that they had some validity in the 1950's...lol), the value of these ideas has been steadily eroding. I don't want to say that there is no validity left to achieving certain milestones in life, but the big difference between now and then is that now, resting on one's laurels has become the luxury of fewer and fewer people, and in some circumstances it can be downright dangerous.

This is because our society has now put its weight and full force behind the idea of constant change. That said, it becomes much more of a challenge for each of us to achieve a measure of happiness and balance in our waking moments But I definitely believe that it is not only possible, but that it has become one of the most important goals that we should seek.

I like to call this personal goal: "happily ever now." While it may sound simple, it's not always so easy to achieve amidst all the "apparent turmoil." By apparent turmoil, I mean the tumultuous nature of personal relationships these days; the volatility of the major markets(housing, stock and job). But "happily ever now" can be achieved in some surprising ways. It can be as simple as going down to the river to watch the sunset, or lingering over an especially good lunch, or not exposing yourself to so much gossip that often has a negative edge to it. It may also be achieved by throwing out the idea that tomorrow is always going to be better- it's today that we have and we better make the most of it, or it's our loss, nobody else's.

So while it's important to have long range goals that sometimes require small or great sacrifices, take some time during your day to look around and enjoy what your have right now- you might just start to feel better about everything.
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I recently came back to NYC from a vacation and was quite pleased to hear from a friend I haven't seen for awhile. She invited me to go join her Buddhist friends at an art museum dedicated to Tibetan art.

I had been to that museum before and thought it was great - so I ultimately agreed to go. I picked her up at her apartment in my jeep and we proceeded to the museum, which is located in lower Manhattan.

Now a little background on my friend: She considers herself to be very spiritual, which I think is generally a good thing (as compared to someone who denies that the spirit exists).

She has been to India many times, and is still a devotee of a well known Indian spiritual teacher. But she is human after all, like all of us. By her own admission, she used to be a compulsive shopper, and the last time she mentioned this problem, she indicated that it was under control.

I also know that she has been in a very volatile relationship with her boyfriend of five years, and according to her, it looks like things are going downhill. I only mention these things so you can appreciate what happened, so you can see the state of the world now through my eyes.

So we are driving in my car at about 7PM this last Friday and I am in a fine, peaceful mood, having had a really great time on this recent trip; it is a beautiful cool night and I am looking forward to meeting her new friends from the Buddhist center where she has been spending so much of her free time.

In the car, she starts telling me about this problem she is having with the local cleaner. For those not familiar with what many NYC residents do, it is quite common to send your laundry out to the local cleaners, which also doubles as a laundry facility. If the cleaners are good, they will pick up and deliver your laundry too. She was telling me how upset she was at her cleaners, because not only had they stopped picking up and delivering, but they had lost a chenille bathrobe of hers AND, to add insult to injury, claimed she still owed them about $43.00 too.

I could completely understand this, since something similar had happened to me several years ago; so I just switched cleaners at the time: Now I sometimes do my own laundry in the laundry room located in the basement of my apartment building.. I suggested this to her, first asking her if there were any other cleaners nearby that she could use.

She claimed that there weren't, and that the closest one was six blocks away, which would necessitate buying a shopping cart(that she didn't have room for). I then asked her if it was possible for her to do the laundry in her apartment building. She abruptly replied: "I'm not going to do my own laundry." It seemed that she was unsatisfied with this suggestion too.

I then turned to her and asked: "What would the Buddha do?" I wish you all could have been in that car, because you would think that I had initiated some type of torture to her by her response. I won't repeat here the things that she said, but suffice it to say that she wasn't pleased by my observation.

As you go through the moments of your life each day and you observe others' behavior as well as your own, it sometimes helps put things in perspective to ask "What would the Buddha do?"
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