I noticed on my walk this morning the trees are beginning to show buds and the bulbs are shooting up. Spring is here and although the cold weather could till come, I feel like I made it through the coldest winter I have ever experienced. This brings me to the thought that I choose how I want to look at my experiences. I could have focused on the uncomfortable cold and how much I dislike that. Instead most of the time I chose to experience happiness. I enjoyed watching the snow fall. I enjoyed being snowed in and cross-country skiing from my home out onto the trails. In each moment I can choose how I want to experience life. I choose to enjoy, to look for what I like, and to be comfortable with what is. Abraham Lincoln said, “people are as happy as they choose to be. “
Imagine a world where people truly believed in happiness and love as the purpose we all shared? The Dalia Lama says, “we are here to be happy and help others be happy.” In this world you and I would have as our mission to spread happiness. A big part of this happiness would be to have an open heart and to be compassionate with all those we interacted with throughout our day. Happiness comes from giving and receiving love, from enjoying what we do, from expressing our creativity, from friendships, from living purposefully, and from being accepting and appreciative of ourselves and those around us. All these ways of happiness come from the choices we make. We can choose happiness in everything we do. Sure there will be times that aren’t happy but those will pass. We can return to happiness in any moment we choose.
I wonder if you would be willing to try an experiment? How about taking a day, a week, a month or longer and become a missionary for happiness. You start the day doing what makes you happy and then you go out into the world and spread that happiness. Help others feel happy. If you feel like it, tell others you are on a mission to spread happiness and ask them if they would like to join you? They can become converts to the happiness movement. Would that be a fun life or what? Now imagine that happiness spread around the world. Imagine people helping each other be happy. What a world it would be.
Let’s go make happy happen. Let me know how your experiment goes.