The No-One Shits On My Happiness Rule

Poster by Anthony Burrill

Yesterday I wrote an email to one of my very best friends (the indefatigable Ms. White Ninja), telling her about a worrisome bitch-sesh that I recently witnessed, wherein the bitching (not bitchin’) party slagged off some good peeps whom I care about.

Of course, it’s far from uncommon – especially (sadly) in the creative world.

A culture of jealousy and fear abounds – the more practitioners there are in a particular area, the fewer the funds, patrons, audience, customers, clients there are to go around – or so it would seem – depending on your mindset, of course (in fact, we know that there’s always more than enough for everyone).

So while this kind of icky isn’t exactly rare, I’ve sort of been in a bitch-free zone lately (which has been really nice), and it did catch me rather off-guard.

Guard-down = upset MZ.

The White Ninja is one of my BFFs because she gets it. When life gets her down, she sits solidly in her shit-days, and then bounces right back up again. Her mind is open & her soul is hungry to experience more, deeper, broader, higher. She’s a renaissance-lady with a design bent & some sexy spectacles. We have very similar goals in life: to give as much as we get, and as good as we get (so we’d better get pretty fucking good – ’nuff said).

Her response to my mini-angst was functionally-angry and life-affirming. It was in the, “there’s no time for this kind of crap, these kinds of mind-sets, and this kind of language anymore” realm. It was the exactly what I needed to hear, “take this example as a sign of your responsibility to rock fierce unity & radical love where others forge irrelevant division” response.

And finally, in true White Ninja style, she informed me that she had recently instituted her own “No-One Shits On My Happiness Rule” (very similar to her “100% No-Assholes Rule”), and that I should saddle this baby up and ride.

“The No-One Shits On My Happiness Rule” does not mean having an absence of compassion. It doesn’t mean not sitting in the truth of genuine pain, or authentically having a crap-faced PMS day.

It means actively getting (and keeping) ourselves out of the way of Debbie-Downers, haters, flamers, and yes – lovely people who are a little disconnected from their ability to keep their verbal emissions, largely speaking, affirming. It’s saying, a big fat “no freakin’ way” to cynicism, jealousy and negativity.

It’s striving to live in dynamic harmony, rather than in pointless combat.

It’s also about holding the “Rule” in our own hearts, too – when our inner-voice starts to attack our own good work & efforts.

Last night in yoga, my teacher taught the four (very freakin’ awesome) questions, originating from ancient scripture, and taught in yogic philosophy as the foundations of every single act of decision making. Briefly, they are:

1. Artha: “Is it life-affirming?”
2. Kama: “Does it bring you pleasure or happiness?”
3. Dharma: “Is it in line with your higher purpose in life?”
4. Moksha: “Is it serving the greater good?”

This matrix of questions is nothing short of pure gold.

It’s similar in nature to Jim Collins‘ Hedgehog, and Marie Forleo‘s Cream Your Panties test (yes, I really just wrote that) – only it was penned thousands and thousands of years ago. My yoga teacher even laughed and said, “Isn’t it funny – they had the same problems back then that we do now.”

I like to think that the guru who wrote that had his or her own “No-One Shits On My Happiness Rule” going on for them. That they’d decided to rock communication, decision-making, writing and teaching that was life-affirming, that brought them pleasure, was in line with their higher purpose, and was serving the greater good.

Yep. It’s true. We are human beings and for as long as we have had this “human” level of consciousness, we’ve had the power and responsibility to make choices from our own free will, that affect ourselves and others both directly and indirectly.

We can choose to say shitty things and shit on other people’s happiness. Or we can choose not to.

Similarly, we can choose to honour Artha, Kama, Dharma and Moksha and leave others to their own crap, because we have some serious life-affirming, happy-making, purpose-fulfilling, good-serving work to do in this life, and there is no time to be wasted here on letting other people shit on our happiness.