[Vision2020] Happiness is a Choice

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Greetings:

I agree that achieving happiness is a choice and it has a lot to do with attitude, but the end of the following sentence simply does not make sense:

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. 

Just one problem with this last sentence is the obvious fact that there are lots of things we get that we did not desire.

Perhaps some of you saw my column on happiness--"Happy Hour is not what Aristotle Had in Mind" at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/happiness.htm.

Nick Gier

---- lfalen <lfalen at turbonet.com> wrote: 
> Thanks for the email. Happiness is a choice. This reminds me of the story of the lady that went to the Nursing home. She said her room was ral nice and she liked it. The attendant said : but you haven't even seen it yet."  The lady said " I made up my mind bere I came that I was going to like it". Im glad you like Dennes Prager
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:41:34 -0800
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Happiness is a Choice

> 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. 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 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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> 
> 
> 

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