Happiness

There are many things that bring me happiness:

Hoke’s giggle
When Nattie says, “I love you, Grandma”
When my children tease one another at the dinner table
Anytime that we are all together
When Maria says, “I love you, Mom”
Long conversations with Seth
When Ryan tells us stories
Snuggling with Sarah
Driving with the music on loud
Watching people worship as I play the piano
Seeing my students play a song they love
Lunches with Christie and breakfasts with Deb
Anytime I’m teaching anything
Holding Steve’s hand
Laughing with friends
Watching Billy with Hoke and Nattie
Reading a great book
Getting up early in the morning and being alone while the house is quiet


I love all of that! And it makes me happy. Or maybe it’s better to say, I am happy and so I find great satisfaction in those things.

On the side of our refrigerator is the saying by Abraham Lincoln, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be,” and I believe that is the truth. Happiness is more about decision than circumstance. And it is the choice I make to find joy in the small things, in the relationships that I have, in the everyday blessings of my life, that make difficult circumstances tolerable.

If you depend on other people to make you happy, I promise you will be disappointed. Not because they are incapable, but because no one should bear that kind of responsibility for another person. You can decide that you will choose optimism over pessimism, kindness over anger, hope over disappointment and pleasantness over grumpiness. Those choices give you the ability to find joy in every day and to recognize it when jumps in front of you. It’s so easy to miss the things that really make for happiness; sometimes we are blind and deaf simply because we choose to be.

Choose well.