“Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future.”
–Earl Nightingale
One of the greatest of all tragedies in life is that so many people spend most of their lives thinking that happiness is just over the next hill or just around the next corner. They seem to believe that happiness comes from a given set of circumstances that usually includes the acquisition of certain possessions and the attainment of a certain status level. Such people will probably never find happiness, because their measure of what is necessary to be happy keeps rising, and it is always just beyond their grasp.
Happiness is an emotion and a way of thinking. It does not depend on how much we have or who we are. It depends on what we think. Happiness comes from within, and all of us are capable of increasing our happiness by changing our thoughts. We cannot afford to wait for something outside of ourselves to come along and make us happy at some point in the future.
Life is full of ups and downs, and none of us can be happy all of the time. However, we do not have to allow every little rock in the road of life to jolt us out of our state of happiness. It is quite possible to remain in a state of general happiness, even when some things are going wrong. The key is to focus on the big picture. Of course, there are always exceptions, but I believe that the vast majority of those people who live in the United States of America have more reasons to be happy than not. Many of the world’s residents would be happy just to be alive in a country like America.
We all have those heart wrenching experiences of having to deal with the death of people we love. It is just not possible to be happy at such times. We have to go through a period of grieving as part of the process of dealing with such a loss. But that grieving should not go on for the rest of our lives. Although we will always miss loved ones and wish they were still alive, at some point, we have to get on with our lives. Life is for the living, and we dare not spend too much time grieving over those who have been gone for a long time.
We have to learn to put the past behind us as much as possible and get on with the business of living our lives. We are not alone in having to deal with death and other losses. Everyone has to deal with such losses. Yet some people who have many losses in life manage to be happy during a large portion of their lives while others allow the death of a loved one, or some other major loss, to almost destroy them. Abraham Lincoln said, “Most people are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” The circumstances of life certainly have some impact on our happiness, but unless we make up our minds to be happy, we probably won’t experience much happiness in life, no matter what the circumstances.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2024
Allen W. Smith
