Happiness: Choice or Chance?

Happiness, a state of being we all long for, even those of us who seriously doubt the possibility of attaining it. Many people falsely believe that whether we are happy depends on the circumstances of our life. This is clearly not true as people who have had bad things happen to appear to be happy people and people who have all the reason in the world to be happy are miserable.

Happiness is a choice. It does not result from living some charmed existence where you have never been touched by difficulty or problems. If we so strongly crave happiness and it is our choice to have it or not, the choice to have it seems obvious, but many of us are not choosing in favor of this desired emotion. Sure, there are plenty of things that can happen in our lives that can produce lots of crappy feelings that are the polar opposite of happiness. We are only human after all, and some things can really shake us to our core and put us in a bad space. But, we have the choice to leave that space and enter a new one. We have the choice on how to view the circumstances of our life. We can always choose the perspective we take on things that happen, both the big things and the little things that touch our lives every day.

Our poor conditioning to think negatively and to focus on our troubles leaves us with a strong tendency to argue for our limitations and all of our crappy feelings and why we are entitled to them. Us humans are a funny bunch. You may look at certain things that are happening in your life or have happened and think, ‘’Why in the hell would I be happy, look at all of these problems, look at all of these terrible things. I have every right to be miserable.’’

Technically I guess this is true as it is understandable how certain things evoke negative feelings. But, you can transcend these things if you make a choice to. It may be difficult and the crappy stuff still may surface sometimes, but that is okay. Being happy is not about feeling great every second of the day. It is not about never dealing with the pain and other negative emotions that surface from the painful things we have experienced in our lives. My father died almost four years ago and I still feel sadness about it almost every single day. Some days I feel sadder about it than when it first happened. That is something I will always carry with me.

Choosing happiness even when it seems like there is nothing to feel happy about will also cause some amazing things to happen. Your life will start to improve and more things to be happy about will start happening. Not just because you are making different choices, but because you will be creating a different energy, an energy that will help draw great things to you without any effort on your part. Circumstances do not dictate our feelings and lot in life, our choices do and you can choose happiness.

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