Happiness is a Choice

True happiness is a choice: Make a proactive decision for happiness

Make a proactive decision to be happy and you will be happy, as true happiness is a choice.

Many people desire true happiness or want to be truly happy, but sometimes they are not happy at all, for some strange reason. For them, even making a decision with respect to happiness or choosing to be happy, seems to be almost impossible. At times, they may appear to envy people who really are happy or who demonstrate a degree of true happiness.

If true happiness is a commodity that can be purchased, everyone would be buying it or trying to purchase stock in it. Maybe only the very rich would be able to afford it. They might try to stock pile it and keep it for themselves, just like they tend to do with their money.

Fortunately, true happiness is not a commodity that has to be purchased, so it remains equally accessible to everyone, at any time.

Regardless of how hard a person might try, no one can buy true happiness. One might be able to buy some material things that bring a degree or measure of happiness, for a time. But, if it is only material things that bring happiness, it may not be true happiness. In fact, it might be some kind of pseudo-happiness.

What is true happiness?

True happiness is good fortune or prosperity, in conjunction with a state of well being and contentment. A few other words that are used to describe it are joy, a pleasurable satisfaction, felicity and aptness. (1)

When one sees a truly happy person, he or she wears a smile (but not always as one can have, or know true happiness and not be smiling, all the time.) A truly happy person appears upbeat and positive in nature, regardless of his or her circumstances. A genuinely happy person may radiate true happiness in his or her countenance. Generally, it is a pleasurable experience to be with someone who is a happy person.

Happiness has a lot to do with happenstance or things that happen and the circumstance in which they happen, but true happiness goes beyond that.

Answer the following questions.

Do you see yourself as being or living in a state of happiness or unhappiness?

Who or what, do you see as determining the reason for your happiness, or unhappiness?

Does your family or do other relatives, see themselves as being in a state of happiness or unhappiness?

Who or what, do they see as determining the reason for their happiness or unhappiness?

What you may find in doing this exercise is the reality that you may have chosen your state of happiness or unhappiness, just as they did and possibly for the same reasons. But, no one can actually make that decision for you.

In other words, you can choose true happiness even though one or all of your other family members or relatives, have chosen a state of unhappiness for themselves.

Ask a million people to define happiness and you may get a million different answers.

Some people might suggest that it has to do with their relationship with God and other people.

When one is not in a right relationship with God and others, can one be truly happy? A great deal of our personal happiness has to do with relationships. Being in right relationships is an important part of our happiness and theirs. In seeking to make others happy, we may find that our own true happiness is realized, as well.

Looking for happiness from others or being with or around other happy people, does not guarantee personal happiness, but it more likely to affect our happiness in a positive way. Being with unhappy people all of the time, can be a put down for us emotionally, because when they are unhappy, we may become unhappy too.

Having a lot of material wealth may appear to be what brings happiness, but in reality, sometimes paupers have far more true happiness than rich people, because having a lot of material wealth, brings the responsibility for it, as well. Wealth can be a burden, at times, as opposed to being a blessing.

If we only seek to find happiness in work or play, then that may not be true happiness either. That will come and go, depending upon what we are doing.

True happiness is inward, not an outward expression of something that we do or try to obtain, in order to 

obtain happiness.

Being successful is not necessarily what makes a person have happiness either, although it may be a contributing factor to his or her state of well being. If a person's happiness is dependent upon success, then any degree of non-success or outright failure, can cause one's happiness to fly right out the window. That can be devastating.

Realizing what your real passion is and who you really are as a person, can help you to be happy or to find happiness, but the bottom line is the reality that true happiness is your personal choice.

Choose to be happy regardless of your circumstances. In fact, make a proactive decision to be happy and you will be happy. Watch how your life will change. Others will see it, too and wonder what happened to you. In fact, they will begin to ask questions and try to figure out how you have obtained true happiness, when they are still miserable.

Do some mentoring and teach others how to find their true happiness. It will make you even happier when you begin to see the results.

(1) Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Inc., Springfiled, MA, 1983