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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Happiness.....is it a choice????

Have you ever noticed that those who have the most to be grateful for are usually the most unhappy??

This is really a rhetorical question but in many ways it does deserve an answer.   I have been attempting to move into a grateful mode these days because in many ways I truly do have many blessings in my life.    All in all, I don't find it that difficult to find the blessings and to focus on them but it has left me thinking about those who don't.   Many years ago I remember speaking with my father about this and saying "have you ever noticed that those who should be the happiest in life because of all the good things in their life are the most unhappy?"  

Ultimately, happiness is a choice.   It is not something that happens to you just because.   Happiness comes from a place within that springs from a sense of hope and purposefulness.   I am basically a happy person.   That doesn't mean that I don't feel sad, or sometimes have pity parties and say "poor me".   It just means that I allow the bad feelings to come and then let them go.  Actually, when I am feeling like having a pity party I put a time limit on it and I don't invite anyone.  I don't hang onto bad feelings because I find some form of weird comfort from them.   I think that is what separates happy people, grateful people, from unhappy, ungrateful people.

Maybe it's a gift.   I don't try hard to be positive.   It is actually the way I prefer to be.  It comes pretty natural most times but there have been times in my life that I have had to force myself to be positive and happy.   Maybe its a habit.   Like anything the more you do something the easier it is to even fake it.  

Anyways, the reason I started writing this is because there are people in my life who are very unhappy but by all of the worlds standards should be extremely happy.    They have their health, their family, their children, a job, a nice home and vehicle, so many things that the world tells us are absolutely necessary to a happy life.   Yet, when I look at them I know that underneath they are suffering.   They are resentful of others.   They are overburdened by life.   I feel sorry for them because in many ways I think I am more fortunate than them and yet I don't have half of what they have.   It is good for us to recognize that others struggle with life no matter what they have achieved or who they are.   Life is a journey and that means that we must travel through it with the means and ways that we have.    If our life has been too easy perhaps that makes the journey harder.   Perhaps when things don't go well, those of us who have struggled have tools that others don't have.   We have the sense of 'all will be well' no matter what......perhaps we are more hopeful and more joyful because we have been to the edge of the abyss and truly know what lies on the other side.....and no matter what this side is sunnier.

Feeling very philosophical today..........

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Elizabeth, you have such a special talent for spreading real happiness - forever grateful:}