We are blessed as Americans to have the right to choose. We protect that right by voting, paying our taxes and voicing our opinions or concerns. This goes back to our constitution where the words Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are part of our foundation as a nation. What I liked about this quote was that it reminded us that it is not liberty that grants us freedom, it is our choices.
Our Choices…that means we are responsible to make the right choices for our life to set a foundation for our own happiness. Yikes! It would be so much easier if we could blame others for our own unhappiness. However, we are in life where we have chosen to be, so to make ourselves a better life we have to make better choices. And if you notice the words are the pursuit of happiness…not guaranteed happiness. We each define for ourselves what our own happiness looks like, what our freedom looks like, and how we are going to make choices such that we can have both. There are no guarantees in life that happiness is our right.
On some days happiness floods our lives. We feel it everywhere we turn. Be it in our job, our home, our relationships or in the places where we live our life. On other days happiness and freedom seem to be playing hide and seek with our mind. Troubles, tormented thoughts, difficult circumstances even rocky relationships all pile on to make a day, a week, a month or even a year seem like it will never end. I am not sure which of those kinds of days or weeks you are currently experiencing, I hope it is the former. My point is that bad times, hard times, changes, or unforeseen events can change our world in an instant, which changes our perspective and ability to be happy. Or does it?
During the hard times I have to remind myself that happiness is a choice, one we must make even in the darkest of hours. Choosing to keep a happiness mindset even in troubles times means setting ourselves straight that happiness is not just a feeling, a circumstance or a fleeting thought. Happiness is a choice. Happiness is a result of our choices, the right choices to get us where we want to go in life. So if happiness is what we choose, then life can bring on what it wants we will deal with it while being happy.
And yes, I know that life is not all about rainbows and butterflies, unicorns and winning lottery tickets. Life gets hard, we feel bad, and somethings get beyond our abilities. Yes! We all have that. And yes, we live in a country where liberty and freedom give us the options to do most anything we want…so we have to choose wisely what we do, how we do it, and how we react to all elements in our life. It is the pursuit of happiness that we are guaranteed, not one generic definition of what being happy means.
So today – no matter what is happening in your world – choose to be happy in who you are, the blessings you do have, and know that whatever is going on in your world will most likely change soon. Good can get great, bad can get worse or better, and tomorrow is another day to be happy to be alive, breathing and moving towards our own definition of happiness.
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