Meg Ryan movie scenes in the Test of Happiness, when you must know who you are and what you want and be willing to trust.

...come fly with me on an imaginary journey over a fictitious town on a fictitious planet called Sameville.

No Thanks, Sameville

There it is, right below us. The area looks just like Earth, has the same terrain, the same-shaped people, same everything. It all seems identical to Earth except for one ghastly condition—everything is gray: the landscape, the buildings, the cars, the animals, the bodies. It's all the same color, even the same shade! The people have no oomph in them, because everything is the same. They have no challenges, no hurdles, no obstacles, no contrast!

Notice the inertia of the people? It's boredom, and it's overpowering. Little wonder. No one has to make decisions in Sameville, for all decisions have the same outcome. No mate is different from the next, all jobs have the same level of stimulation, and . . . have you seen enough? The scene looks about as close to hell as we'd want to get.

Who'd want to live in such a place? What would be the point? Nothing to rise above, nothing to desire, no differences to appreciate, nothing to inspire enthusiasm. Simply a place of incalculable boredom, which is precisely what we came here to Planet Earth to avoid. We came in search of diversity and differences. We came, strangely enough, for the contrast.

That's what our third dimensional Planet Earth offers, a cornucopia of alternatives and choices, a training ground to help us determine what kinds of things we don't like, so we can turn around and—thank you very much—create the kinds of things we do like. Like the man said, if the only ice cream ever made was vanilla, life would be pretty dull.

So we have choices; lots and lots of choices offering us not only the opportunities to live and enjoy whatever in this bountiful world we desire, but also to find out just how much torture and deprivation we're willing to put ourselves through before permitting those desires into our lives.

Let's face it, we are unequaled wizards at identifying what displeases us, but not too hot at allowing ourselves to identify what we really, reeeally do want so that we can magnetize those things into our lives for the sheer joy of having them.
Life was meant to be, “Don't like that, do like that.” Instead it turned out to be, “Don't like that, but guess I'm stuck with it.” Then we bitch and stew and fuss and gripe about all the stuff we're stuck with, which of course keeps us even more stuck right in the middle of where we don't want to be.

So what do you want? Do you know? Do you dare to dream? Do you dare to desire? Do you dare to let your imagination (the most divine and mighty gift of the human race) run to the winds of fancy? What do you want? What do you dearly, truly want?

-Lynn Grabhorn, from the book "Excuse me, Your Life is Waiting"

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