Is being happy one of them?
Yes, happy. Are you planning to be happy this year?
“I can’t answer that,” you say. “I hope I’ll be happy, but I have no way of knowing what the year will bring.”
Knowing that you’re going to be happy this year doesn’t require a call to a psychic hotline or a visit to a tarot-card reader. For, in fact, you will be happy if you decide to be.
That’s right. The decision is completely yours.
If you are one of those misguided souls who believe happiness is the lucky result of things going right, it’s time to get your facts straight. Your happiness doesn’t depend on what day of the week it is, what’s gone wrong or right recently, or if things are running smoothly at the shop or at home.
Happiness is not an award bestowed on those who have good things occurring in their lives – the more good things that come your way the more happiness points you accumulate.
Being happy is a decision, a conscious choice, not a lottery for which some lucky few draw the winning number.
Far too many of us see happiness as an
“If … then.” If something happens, improves, goes away, then we’ll be happy.
But happiness isn’t a destination – it’s a method of transportation. It’s the way you choose to journey through your life. Waiting until life follows your itinerary before you allow yourself to be happy is no way to live.
French novelist Colette offered, “Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.”
Only the wisest among us will always be able to step back from the problems, the anger and the disappointments that occur throughout our lives and see them merely as single, manageable events. They should not be viewed as determinants of our overall happiness and contentment.
Making a decision to be happy will require more effort than waiting for fate to provide it for us. Choosing to be happy will often take work.
As author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps explains it, “Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will turn to weeds.”
Here’s wishing we all spend this year cultivating our happiness and enjoying the harvest for years to come.
Denise Lloyd
Publisher