finding happiness

Happiness: a state of well being or contentment. Is it a choice or is it something you have no control over? Happiness, I have found, is completely up to you. It’s not up to the people around you, it’s not up to your relationships, it’s not your job. It’s a decision that you make daily, hourly even. A happy life is created when you are constantly choosing to find the good, to focus on the positive. This doesn’t mean your naive to your problems, however it does mean that you don’t let the bad overrule the good. It means you don’t allow something that happened to you change your perspective on everything else that’s good in your life. Choosing happiness means embracing struggles so that you can learn and grow from them and use your experience to help others. It means not allowing one thing steal your joy and therefore everything in life is bad. Don’t allow your issues or hurts deceive you into seeming bigger than they are. Yes they matter, yes it hurt but constantly focusing on the bad can cause more suffering than is actually needed. Like I’ve said before, allow yourself to feel the pain, be mad, cry but don’t stay stuck in it. Make a conscious decision the next time something tries to come in and upset you, take it for what it is, nothing less nothing more, then remind yourself of the good that still exists. Remind yourself there’s still joy to be found, happiness is still an option. Once you can grasp this concept I promise you will find a great freedom not being controlled by what happens to you or who said what to you. You will live a miserable life letting your emotions always control you. Emotions are a great thing, I believe God gave them to us so that we can live a fuller life, so that we can connect and love, but remember that you are in control of them they do not control you.

“I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react” -Charles Swindoll