Useful Happiness

You know that you are on a spiritual path when you are happy while doing useful things.  There are people who are useful to others, helpful, industrious, but with grumbling, murmuring, self-pity that what they are doing is beneath them, or should be done by someone else, or is just a pain in the neck. Such people, if not reflective of their feelings in these situations are not on a spiritual path.  Now you might say that you do things with joy or happiness but you don’t pray much.  Prayer does not make you a person of useful happiness as if by magic.  I know people that pray and whine.  But you might be on a spiritual path if you are aware of your grumbling while doing tasks.  You know you are falling short of a goal of useful happiness.  This is where I often find myself.  Progress not perfection gives me hope as I trudge along.