Building Happiness

By Miles Patrick Yohnke
Copyright © 2016 - All Rights Reserved.
Released September 22, 2016

Ludwig Yohnke and family, circa 1890.

What is the definition of a successful person?

My great grandfather Ludwig Yohnke and his family left Colmar, Germany (now France), on a ship called the Rhein, and arrived in the United States on September 19, 1885.

Ludwig was 42. My great grandmother, Juliane, was 30.

Ludwig's first wife died in the Franco-Prussian war which occurred between 1870 and 1871. My grandfather, Emil, was just 4 when they came to America looking for a new start for the family.

What would make a family leave their family and homeland with a wealth of history and heritage?

Look at the landscape of finely crafted buildings in Colmar, as just one example of its beauty.

• What made so many of our forefathers leave their homelands?


• Why couldn't the people live there with one another?


• Why were there so many killings, and this trying to outdo your fellow man mindset? I need to have more than you. More jewels. More gold.


• How did this incorrect vision of searching for better lives in another land ever develop?


• Was it the mistaken idea that more money, land, and wealth would make us happier?

We are still killing each other here in the new land too. Not even over basic needs like food and water but for money! Is this the vision that should be ever remembered?

Our forefathers came to a totally undeveloped America to build a new future and new hope for their families and yet it has not turned out as they had planned.

Yes, they endured hard times here as well. Perhaps they became wealthy with money and land, but most of their descendants still remain poor in spirit and human development.

Turn on your television. Look at your tablet or smartphone. Look at the news. Look at all the senseless killings. The senseless lifestyles we have created. Is this what was meant as "a better life"?

It saddens me deeply to write this. My family ran away, as did so many others and we are all still running away from something. Too scared to deal with and resolve our problems and live as one. To live a truly meaningful life. A happy life.

Life is more than being drunk with guns. Your life's existence should amount to more than a shared file on someone's hard drive. A Facebook page in remembrance.

The first parent who bought their child a toy gun and thought that it was a good idea, who was the inventor of the toy gun and why didn't we question it then and now?

Why did so many parents teach or show their children how to play, "Cowboys and Indians"? What were we really teaching? And look at the racism we still have. Look at all the killings. Look at what we do to one another. Look at how we still judge one another. By skin pigmentation? Not by our contribution to each other?

Are you crying as you read this? Ashamed? I sure am as I write this. It has to be written, discussed. It has to change. How we are living, and what we are doing to each other is simply wrong. It has been wrong since cavemen walked upright, and we need to resolve it now; to stand upright and not cower in fear over being honest and real.

How do we resolve this? It starts with breaking out of our inherited collective mind patterns that have held us hostage. The wrong mindset of a better life. Reshaping the incorrect mold of happiness.

Discover what is false in you. I speak of the nature of the human unconsciousness and dysfunction, as well as its most common behavioral manifestations, from conflicts in relationships to warfare between tribes and nations.

Such knowledge is vital. For unless we learn to recognize the false as false - as not us - there can be no lasting transformation, and we will always end up being drawn back into the illusions and continue the pain.

Learn to recognize, take charge of, and change your emotional reactions. The only way any of us can get to a place of peace and tranquility is by understanding our minds and conquering our emotions.

The most painful process is self-analysis. It is imperative to master in order to truly know ourselves completely and how to treat each other correctly, humanly, Godly. Is this not what any religion really is teaching?

Who decided to twist the writings of long ago and word them to meet their personal agenda and perhaps greed? To make it ok as long as they write that their God is the person who said it was alright to do so? We as a race have always twisted words around to meet our hidden selfish agendas.

To create a universe of peace we have to first create a universe of self-liking.

A person whose life's ambition is to defeat others only defeats themselves for it is a lesser person who knows not themselves.

It is the time that we start loving one another, no matter our race, gender, national origin, religion, physical or mental disability.

It is time that we stop all this discrimination. It is time that we build a place where we are all equal. It is time that we put down our firearms and open up our loving arms.

The possibilities are literally within each of us.

The most comfortable place to live is where there is peace within your heart.

What is the definition of a successful person? Answer: a happy one.

How do we build happiness?

Begin with you!

Miles Patrick Yohnke, 2016. Photograph by Marcel Toews.

Miles Patrick Yohnke is a globally recognized motivational author, poet, and mentor with a wealth of life experience. His philosophies and materials are used in schools in Africa, India, and the United States. They are used by preachers in their pulpits. They have been read on National radio and featured in countless publications.

If you are looking at developing your career, Yohnke offers consulting in person, by phone or via email. For more info, please contact Miles directly at: 306.227.6379

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