“How can you be so happy when people are dying, being bombed and murdered?”

A common question. And I can see the sense in it. With so much going on in the world today, a world where acts of terrorism anywhere are reported immediately the world over, we can find plenty of reasons to put aside our love and happiness and choose fear, hatred and sadness instead.

Yet if we choose fear, the terrorists have won. They will have succeeded in their quest to proliferate terror. If we choose to live in terror and act upon it we have become an agent of the change the terrorists seek.

Of course, each and every time I hear of any such acts I do feel sad, and occasionally anger too.

In any moment we can feel sad, but we need not BE sad.

In immersing myself in this work I have become much more masterful at catching my own fearful thinking and letting it go. Just like the terrorists I can choose whether to believe my fearful thinking. Unlike the terrorists I choose not to.

In a world where we now get to see so much fear, hatred and sadness, we must be even more determined to be lights of love and happiness. Martin Luther King, Jr. summed this up beautifully - “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Empathy need not be an act of sacrifice, it can be an act of love.

With each act of terror I am more determined to spread happiness, I am more determined to love.

Instead of being a thought terrorist I choose to be a light of love and happiness.

Wishing you much happiness, and loving you.