I heard someone say that Amazon.com boasts more than 20,000 titles on the subject of happiness. Yet with all the reading we’re doing, many of us will still say we haven’t found it yet.
Some say a deep longing for happiness is at the heart of the desire for money, fame, and power. Perhaps the best advice anyone could give us, whether we’re married or single, is to stop waiting for happiness to come galloping over the next horizon.
From my own experience, happiness does not come from trying to be someone different than who we are, nor in running from here to somewhere else. Happiness is not in the things we desire nor is it based on conditions. Happiness is always within our reach, but to have it we must sometimes take a stand and mentally fight for our divine right to be happy.
Abraham Lincoln said, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Roman Emperor Marcus Antonius said, “No man is happy who does not think himself so.”
English journalist Roger L’Estrange said, “It is not the place nor the condition, but the mind alone that can make anyone happy or miserable.”
I have proven to myself that a change in attitude and viewpoint leads to a change in perspective and outlook, which inevitably results in improved situations. Living next door to in-laws who, in my early marriage years, often made me feel they weren’t pleased with my husband’s choice in a wife gave me many opportunities for implementing my attitude adjustment.
I believe happiness must be as consciously practiced as gratitude, forgiveness, and kindness. As with everything else, the more we practice it, the better we get at it.
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