Everyone wants to be happy but most of us use our time to work at other things. We study, we work at a job, we try to get more money or the ideal mate, or a new car or job. Then we wait for happiness to strike like some disease or gift from heaven. How much time have you spent today trying to just be happier? I would guess the honest answer is none.
Guess what. Want to be happier? Learn how and then practice.
Living happily is work. First you must study and learn how. The Steps on the left hand of this page are one way to a happier life. Then you have to practice. Practice will include failures but if you practice, eventual improvement is inevitable! To learn to read you have to learn your ABC's and then practice. To become a good driver, you have to learn how to drive and then practice. To learn how to be a good tennis player, you have to learn tennis and then practice. Same with making your life happier.
The First Step is to accept that it is you who is responsible for how happy you are. I struggled with this step for two years. How could I be responsible if I were starving. If someone was punching me. If I had no money? Of course I couldn't. But if I allowed some wiggle room, I would inevitably expand it until I was not responsible for very much at all. I could blame my kids, my boss, my income, my health, my neighbors. And I would.
The answer came from the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are the right to" Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." As long as I had the necessities of life, the liberty to search and live as I chose as long as I did not impinge on the rights of others, then I had no excuse for not being happy. My pursuit not of money, a new car, or a winning lottery ticket but of happiness itself could begin. And it did.
Was my life as I would have wished? Certtainly not! But I could change that. Did I need anything before I started trying to be happier? No. I could and should and did start that day.
OK. I accepted responsibility and decided to give it a try right then. So now what? Well, the Second Step is to accept all those things that I couldn't change including the other people in my life and get on with trying to change the things that I could control. Immediately, a mountain of obstacles disappeared.
To be continued.
