Happiness

Being an eternal optimist, sometimes I am sadly disappointed when things don't go the way I'd like or have envisioned. (Ok, maybe that also speaks to my somewhat controlling nature.) But I still revert back to my optimistic if sometimes unrealistic expectations. It's actually one of the things I like about myself. I try to look on the brighter side of things and have faith that things always happen for a reason, whether we understand the reason now or not. I have had profound confirmations of this in the past and it is what keeps me so upbeat. I was recently drawn to a book called Eat, Pray, Love. The author was on Oprah but I didn't see the episode she was on, just a commercial for that particular episode and the title of the book resonated with me so I bought it for myself. The author details her "quest" of sorts, regarding her spirituality and purpose in life. In her book the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, quotes one of her spiritual guru's teachings on happiness: "People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments." I loved this quote! It is so deeply true. We are truly the only ones that can make ourselves happy. We choose how we look at the world, how we react to others and how we internalize outside influences. It's what I try to teach in counseling and it's what I believe with all my being. Now I just need to remember this when I'm obsessing over some unimportant aspect of life. It is my New Year wish for all of us-that we will CHOOSE to be happy!