This month we are living with the challenge that we alone are the ones in charge of our happiness. Sounds so very logical in theory, but in reality it is actually pretty tough to realise that the bottom line is ours and ours alone.
It seems that happiness is dependent upon so many things these days. Social media will have us attribute our happiness to our physical environment - the right job that gives satisfaction and of course the right pay packet, a nice clean house, the latest car to drive, an abundance of food on the table, the perfect healthy body and 2.4 children to complete our family. I could go on and on into both the material things, and the basic human necessities that we feel contribute to our 'daily happiness'; but a privileged life does not come hand in hand with a happy life, because happiness is ours for the choosing. For me happiness, I have learnt, is more about my internal, not physical environment - and this has been harder to attain at times than a new car!
Creating an internal environment that cultivates happiness means clearing out all the negative stuff that gets in the way and smothers our ability to see the things we should be grateful for in our lives.
Happiness is choosing Joy.
Choosing joy means letting go of anger, fear, jealousy, resentment, what-ifs and if-onlys.
Two people can go through exactly the same life experience and yet live it so very differently. One comes away with wisdom and growth, the other is brought down by despair and destroyed. Free will is synonymous with the human condition, and it is the difference between one persons happiness and anothers despair.
There are many circumstantial things in our lives that we are unable to control, many people who's behaviour we are unable to change. But the one thing that remains always within our power is how we choose to react or respond. Therein lies our choice. No one thing or person can make us feel the way we feel, we alone are in charge of our emotions and how we choose to let life affect us. Harsh but true. Strange as it may sound we can choose joy.
"The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover the joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing in the world?"
(Ann Voskamp - One Thousand Gifts)
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