You know, every Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving, we gather around the table with family and friends for a festive occasion. It takes weeks of anticipation and even weeks of preparation. We enjoy a wonderful moment when we gather, not so much the food, but what is all around that, all the family and friends gathering together to celebrate the occasion. They are really sacred moments.

If you think about an ordinary social interaction, that you might have at a party or some sort of scene, and you are meeting people for the first time, what is typically the first question after you have greeted? What do you do? And I am always reluctant to answer because they are so disappointed! They are like, "Oh, okay," and then the conversation comes to an end.

There is a great story told of a little fish in the ocean swimming around trying to figure out where the ocean is. He comes up to this older, wiser fish and says, “Where is the ocean?” The old fish says to him, “You are swimming in it.” The little fish is confused. He says, “But that is just water,”

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to see Cirque du Soleil. I am not sure if you have ever seen a Cirque du Soleil. It is a circus, yes, but it is a circus at a whole other level. It is more like a theater production than it is a circus. It certainly has all the elements of it
and there are different varieties within their repertoire.

When I was growing up in Ireland, my father had an expression, just one simple phrase that summed up a person, and it was a compliment. He would see somebody that he thought well of, somebody that he thought was authentic, they were genuine, you could count on them. He would say, "Ah, that man is a salt of the earth man." It was a sort of a definitive statement.

In 2015, two great spiritual masters met for a week in India to try to uncover what led to true happiness of life, true joy of life. The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu met and wrote a book called The Book of Joy, and you have heard me make reference
to it many times over the years. They spent this time trying to determine what are the key components about this deep happiness that can come in our life.