I used to have a friend that would ask me a simple, but powerful question on a fairly consistent basis. He would ask: “Are you happy?” I would answer: “I guess?” I mean, I wasn’t sad, so the opposite is happy, so I must be happy, right? Every now I then, I would wonder to myself: “Are you happy?”, but something else would come along and take control of my thoughts and I would drift onto something else.

I see and hear a lot of people in our world today that are not happy. I think if you asked most people, they would say: “I would like to be happy, but I’m not so sure how to get there. I think a lot of folks spend the first half of their lives, just trying to figure out what “happy” is. We think we know, get it rounded up and discover that what we thought it might be, turns out to be a wrong guess. Which is exactly why I think that a lot of us tend to give up and become satisfied if “happy” just kinda crosses over our tracks every now and then.

But the truth is, we were created for so much more than that. I think one of the problems with the idea of “happy” is that we think it’s a place to be, a destination to arrive at, but it is so much more than that. One of my favorite teachers, Wayne Dyer, puts it this way: “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.” I really do like that:  “HAPPINESS IS THE WAY!”  We just have to get our definition and understanding of happiness right and then the rest tends to fall into place.

So what is happiness? Happiness is a lot of different things and it really depends on who you are talking to. Happiness is a choice, a decision of direction that we choose for ourselves, regardless of the situation or projected outcome. Some are happy going and some are happy sitting at home. Some are happy in a noisy crowd and some are happy enjoying quiet time alone. Some are happy with abundance, while some are happy with very little. This actually gives us a clue as to what happiness really is…

HAPPINESS IS  A CHOICE!  Abraham Lincoln said: “We are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be!” That is why you can see two people go through identical situations and one will be happy and up on cloud nine and the other will be down in the dumps and ready to die. So, the one most important thing we can learn about happiness is that happiness is a choice that we get to make for ourselves.

There it is, YOU GET TO DECIDE FOR YOU! You cannot decide for anyone else, but you can decide for yourself and you, yourself can make a difference in helping others to get there for themselves. If you are going through something hard, difficult or challenging, you can be happy knowing that it is making you stronger, revealing wisdom to you and showing you a side of yourself that you never knew existed. If you are going through good times, blessings and success, you can be happy knowing that what you’ve dreamed of and worked for is a reality that makes life better, sweeter and easier.

Choose to by happy, regardless, you will be glad you did!