A Pursuit of Tranquility, Happiness, and Compassion

By Christopher James Toogood

A Pursuit of Tranquility, Happiness, and Compassion leads readers through a transformational journey of epic proportions. The value proposition for my reader is rather straightforward. You know you want change in your life. Change from struggles and everyday hurdles that preoccupy your mind and routinely drain your energy. My hope is that you will find and learn what I have over the course of my life and experience new beginnings. New beginnings with the way your mind processes your thoughts, with your close personal relationships, with friends or coworkers, or with total strangers. My desire to make the world a better place lead, to the discovery that it began with me. If you are willing to read this work with an open mind and are seriously interested in ridding yourself of the old way of doing things, I believe you will enjoy and prosper from your commitment as well as the time commitment to implement recommendations I make throughout its pages. I encourage the reader to prepare for their new beginning. If not you, who? If not now, when? Best regards to you and your newfound transformation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636308937

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Tranquility, Happiness, Compassion

The title of my book was derived from my favorite reading materials and my personal quest in life. I have always been drawn to the self-help selection of materials as well as the spirituality section of available books on the shelves of whatever library I may be visiting. The title was derived by my belief in the importance of expanding our understanding of our life, a pursuit to comprehend and learn who we are, why we struggle in life, what can we do to better our life, and what does it take to change our life—for the better—my pursuit. Tranquility and compassion, I have discovered, are fundamental aspects of a happier , more meaningful existence. After all, isn’t that a meaningful purpose? Happiness and a meaningful existence? I believe so, and therefore, I believe it can all be summed up with tranquility, happiness, and compassion. Not just for ourselves, but for those we live with, meet with throughout the course of each day, and those random interactions that happen more often than we realize. When one reaches new levels of tranquility, happiness, and compassion, you feel the need to share them—what better way than with random interpersonal contacts. Random interpersonal contacts that we experience each day, to me, represents the primary catalyst that can be used to incorporate change into our behavior and thought process—making a truly positive change. Once one experiences this newfound skill, they’ll want to experience the end results again and again. It’s somewhat addictive. Let’s look at an example or two that illustrates my point.

A visit to a local grocery store is a very routine experience. Typically, we know what we need and have a plan to get in and get out after picking up the items on our list. We may take time to browse if we’re not in a hurry and grab a few other things that’ll come in handy for future use. Throughout the course of our shopping, how many interpersonal interactions do we typically expect to have before we walk out the doors to return to our car? I would guess that unless we run into someone, we might know, the only person that we interact with is the cashier and also maybe the deli personnel or meat department attendant. It’s a fairly typical expectation. After all, we’re always in a hurry to get in and get out. The question I ask is, How many interactions may we have had had we looked beyond our list of necessities? In addition, what might have we gained had we added to our list of necessities: talking to another shopper and learning something about them or going out of our way to facilitate an interaction for the personal gain we could receive by giving of ourselves a little, a little of our time? What gain is possibly worth the effort of trying to interact with someone at the grocery store? Let’s consider that for a moment. Maybe you cross paths with another shopper, a mother (or father) with three kids; she (he) may or may not be enjoying their shopping experience depending on the ages of the kids and how many times they have to say no to them as they see something brightly colored or sugary or something their friends may have. I imagine it can be quite stressful for the mother (father) handling the experiences we might take for granted. What might happen if you took the opportunity in passing to comment to her (him) or the children as a means to notice their existence? A casual passing comment may very well lead to making a huge difference to the surprised individual. To the mother (father): I couldn’t help but notice how well you handle the job of shopping with three children! To the children: You must be having fun helping your mother (father) with the shopping. I’m sure she (he) is glad you’re able to help as much as you are! It’s really not hard to think of something positive to comment on, wouldn’t you think? I actually look for these types of casual interactions, because in my experience, it always ends up being very rewarding. Rewarding on a personal basis. First responses tend to include huge smiles (from all parties), quick comebacks to affirm your interest in noticing them during their shopping experience, and usually a friendly thirty seconds to a minute interaction that ends where it began with everyone sharing a big grin.

So what was gained? you may ask. It may be obvious to some that appreciate the art of communications. Something today that isn’t practiced nearly enough in my humble opinion. But by empathizing with the shopper, including your acknowledgment of the efforts it takes to shop with three children, which can be quite nerve-racking, you touched them all in a special way. Your attempt to empathize gave them a chance to stop at the moment and change directions due to your gesture of saying hello. Your comments and brief interaction will not necessarily end after you say goodbye. They would likely carry it with them throughout the day, recognizing how it influenced the remainder of their shopping experience and made a positive impression on them. That one brief moment in which someone (you) took notice of is what humanity represents. Not only did you likely leave a positive impression on them, but they left an impression on you the same way. You’ll remember the conversation, the interaction, the smiles, the warmth of that moment for days, weeks, or months later. Think about that for a brief moment. How many spontaneous interactions do you have with people (total strangers) that you remember for days or weeks afterward? As well, they’ll remember it also. Like most things in life, try it once for yourself, then you’ll look for other opportunities to repeat this act of humanity. Why? Because it was an experience that was good. Good for them, and good for you.

I believe, in general, we all live in our own box of a comfort zone. Myself included. Our routines are our comfort zones. We perform our daily, weekly, monthly routines—our comfort zone, which doesn’t usually