Happiness tops off the human list of essentials. No matter how much we achieve or attain to in life, without happiness it is all wasted effort. Life without achievement is failure and achievement without the room for celebration is a defeat of purpose. After all, the essence of striving to succeed is purposefully to become whom we need to be and what we need to accomplish, which is worth celebrating. This kind of accomplishment comes in phases and so we celebrate each time we make a stride in life.
Imagine a world without something to celebrate? Isn’t it the hope of victory and light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us going in life? Which means there is something we all are looking forward to at the end of our journey or travail. And that is the hope of celebrating all our accomplishments in life.
Without happiness, there is no celebration. And happiness is not one of the things anyone can put on the back burner or decide it’s something to achieve in the future. It takes a grateful heart to live and enjoy a life of happiness. Nothing external should be the trigger of our happiness; it has to be something from within us. When our happiness is linked to some outside influence which is outside of our control, there is bound to be a problem.
Also, our happiness should not depend on quantifiable substances. There are so many things we enjoy daily which we have no control over. And this is just one of the ways to know that God is in control of the universe. The air we breathe is out of our control; the functionality of the organs in our bodies is also out of our control; and there’s more. These are all God’s doing, and not science, and we cannot quantify it.
The source of true happiness is gratitude. To be grateful is to have a positive perspective about everything and see the good in all things. It is our individual responsibility to understand and live with an attitude of gratefulness. I have come to realize that there are things in life that we cannot change no matter how much we labor and desire for them to change. These are cause and effect situations. For example, we cannot change our behavior until we change our beliefs. Neither can we change what we say until we change how we think and what we think. Out of the abundance of our heart comes our utterance. What we say is the effect while what we think is the cause. Any attempt to change our words without changing our thoughts will be unsuccessful.
We also have a habit of placing a condition on our happiness. We are caught up in believing that we could be happier, and life will be better if only this or that happens. We have come up with a long list of “if only” and it goes on and on in each person’s mind. “If only I had more money; if only I was of a different race or nationality; if only I have better opportunities; if only I would meet some special people; if only I was married; if only I married someone different; if only what happened did not happen”. As the list goes on, our perspective continues to get clouded by these conditional phrases to the point where we are unable to see any of the opportunities that surround us.
Thinking this way limits our ability to be thankful about anything in life. We create conditions that hinder our gratitude with our long lists of “if only”. There is no way we can appreciate what we cannot see or acknowledge. Once we’ve plagued ourselves with our “if only”, it becomes impossible to see things differently. And until we remove the veil from our minds, we won’t see the hidden lessons and benefits that we can harness.
Our conditional phrase of “if only” should remind us of how children always wish for and can’t wait to become adults just so they can have the liberty to do as they please. Children have the impression that adults have so many privileges which give us the right to do whatever we want whenever we feel like. Therefore, they want to grow up quickly so they can take advantage of becoming free from restrictions, rather than enjoying where they are. But many of us can attest to the fact that we enjoyed more liberty as a child compared to being an adult.
This same concept applies to each one of us who think that the things we don’t have are the reason we are not really happy. This is far from the truth. It is really not about what you have or what you lack, but it is your interpretation of your circumstances that you need to change.We must all find the truth in our situation; and the truth we need is not only how we perceive things but how we interpret what we perceive.
If you think having more money will make you happy, you should know that money comes with more responsibilities and some unforeseen challenges. If you cannot manage your emotions and make yourself happy with what you have now, whatever you think you are missing will not change your emotional status or create happiness. This is why your gratitude and happiness should be independent of anything and everything.
If we really want to experience what true gratitude is, we need to change our perspective about everything from negative to positive. We have to take a sincere inventory of our lives to realize that there are so many things we should be thankful for. What we perceive as negative has a function when we place it closer to a positive view. Heat makes us appreciate coolness and darkness makes us value light. When we don’t have something or enough of it, we tend to value and appreciate it or the little we have of it. Just as someone who has been single for a long time will see value in having a partner.
The truth is whatever we have or whatever we desire helps us appreciate some other aspect of life, if only we can see from a positive perspective, and then be grateful right where we are. Happiness is synonymous to a heart of gratitude. Be grateful for everything in your life and you will not fall short of happiness in your life.