Can you choose to be unhappy? Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Who would want to be unhappy consciously? Everyone is desperately trying to be happy, which means trying their best to avoid sources of unhappiness, and ironically, ending up being unhappy. For a change, stop chasing the mirage of happiness and try this unique formula of Osho’s: First, after waking up in the morning, decide that you are going to be consciously unhappy all day. No matter what happens, you will not get out of the dark ditch of unhappiness. Even if you win the lottery, or strike a new deal, or your loved one returns from a long trip, remain unhappy. If you decide it you can do it.
The second part follows like a shadow. If you can choose to be unhappy, of course, you can choose to be happy too, because it is the same mind using its decision-making power. Experiment with this: in the morning decide to be happy. Now don’t look for excuses not to be, don’t say, “How can I be happy when my mother is sick? Or when I have lost a tonne of money?” You did not look for excuses when you wanted to be unhappy, why are you looking for them now? It is the same logic. If you can successfully carry out your decision to be unhappy, your decision to be happy will also be successful, mind will see to that. Each moment life brings you two alternatives: to be miserable or to be happy. It depends on your choice. Whatsoever you choose you become.
Osho narrates the story of a Sufi mystic, Bayazid. He was a tremendously happy man. Nobody had ever seen him unhappy; nobody had ever seen him sad. He never complained or grumbled about his situation. Whatsoever happened he was cheerful. Life was not always easy for him: sometimes there was no food, yet he was happy. Sometimes for days he went without food, yet still he was happy. Sometimes there were no clothes, yet he was happy. Sometimes he had to sleep under the sky, yet his happiness remained undisturbed; it was unconditional. He was asked again and again, and he would laugh it away. When he was dying somebody asked, “Bayazid, now give us your key, your secret. You will be leaving soon. What was your secret?”
He said, “There is nothing like a secret. It was a simple thing. Every morning when I open my eyes, life gives me two alternatives. It says, ‘Bayazid, do you want to be happy or unhappy?’ I say, ‘I want to be happy.’ And I choose to be happy and I remain happy. It is a simple choice, there is no secret.” The day you decide that it is your decision to be happy or unhappy you will never be able to say that someone else is making you unhappy, because that is a declaration of slavery. You have become a master.
