[Vision2020] Happiness is a Choice

[Tom Hansen]

Happiness is a Choice
By Michael Josephson
http://charactercounts.org/michael/
 
In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy asks Charlie Brown, “Why do you think we were 
put on earth?”

Charlie answers, “To make others happy.” 

Lucy replies, “I don’t think I’m making anyone happy,” and then adds, “but 
nobody’s making me very happy either. Somebody’s not doing his job!”

People like Lucy are so sure happiness is a matter of getting something 
that they ask not what they can do for others but what others can and 
should do for them. They usually feel shortchanged or cheated. They become 
so preoccupied with what they don’t have that they can’t enjoy what they 
do have.

What’s more, they don’t realize one of the best ways to be happy is to 
experience the joy and self-worth of making others happy. 

In his book Happiness Is a Serious Problem, Dennis Prager argues that it’s 
human nature to want and feel we need more. The problem is, the quest for 
more is endless because we can always add more to whatever we have. As a 
result, the Lucys of the world often live in an “if only” world that keeps 
them one step away from happiness: “If only I get this raise, make this 
sale, pay off my debts, or win this game, I’ll be happy.”

Abraham Lincoln understood that happiness is essentially a way of looking 
at one’s life. “A person is generally about as happy as he’s willing to 
be,” he said. 

Thus, we’re more likely to experience happiness if we realize it’s not 
just getting what we want. It’s learning to want what we get. 

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Stay healthy.  Stay happy.  Stay informed.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapse Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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