“No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change”.  Barbara De Angelis

What is happiness? “Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.” This is according to Wikipedia.

How many times in life does someone ask you “are you happy?”  Who or what defines your happiness?  Taking a glimpse within, I must admit there was a time in my life when I thought and believed that my partner defined my happiness, he was responsible for ensuring that I was content and experienced that intense joy, after all he loved me right? So he should ensure that the person he loves was happy!

 Back in those dark ages, when I had little enlightenment about this thing happiness and knew less about myself, one of the ways I wanted my partner to signify without a doubt that he loved me was by buying me flowers. I felt that if he loved me and knew how much I liked flowers, then he would surely want to make me happy and buy me flowers.  I waited and waited and waited, for flowers that were not forthcoming, he bought me other things and in his own way showed me he cared, but he did not buy me flowers and I was not complete, I still needed this symbol of his love and I really did like flowers so much, still do.

Many years later I would go out, see a lovely bouquet of flowers and dare to buy them myself.  I would bring them home or to the office, put them in a vase with water and I would love them, they would make me happy! They would give me that intense joy! What a surprise! So it is the flowers that made me happy, who bought them was not important! What an epiphany for me! What power I had returned to myself! This being one example of many, I learned quickly that ultimately, I was responsible for my happiness.  I decided whether I was happy or not, people or things around me could not make that decision for me, unless I gave them the power.

Now I know that though surrounding myself with positive people and attracting positive energy lends in my happiness, yet those around me can only take away my happiness if I let them.  They may try to create misery, and unfortunately in life, many succeed.  However, I have the power to decide how I will allow people to affect me.  I decide who I surround myself with and if they do not make me feel good inside my soul and they don’t add value to my life, then I have to be strong enough to make the decision to sever ties, even though at times it means remaining alone.

Many things make me happy, life, the laughter of a child, the dawning of the day with the warming rays of the sun, the pitter patter of raindrops against my window pane, the light breeze over the ocean as the sun sets and the day draws to a close.  The sound of music (no pun intended, I do like the movie as well), the smell of pastries right out of the oven, the sight of my angel, sleeping, smiling, being pensive or concentrating, my angel period, a great source of happiness for me.  A rainbow in the distance, I still love cut flowers (hint, hint J), a good book, my friends:, their love, support and all the moments we LOL* together! I could go on forever, and for that I am grateful. I have so much that makes me happy,  and thank God that I am enlightened enough and know myself well enough to be able to recognize happiness and differentiate it with that  which has the opposite effect.

The world is full of sadness and misery, every time we look around we see something that just depresses us and makes us feel bad.  But the world also has so much good, beauty and joy. We need it all, it is imperative that we find individual ways to be happy. I believe that happiness will give us hope and make everything else palatable.  If we live with anger, sorrow and despair, then we do not live.   We crush our hopes and diminish our souls, our possibilities to be greater, better, wiser people.  On the contrary,  if we can make the choice to be happy, look for and find that happiness around us, then we can continue to feed our souls with hope and inspiration and be able to take the next positive step into our future!  You have the power make the change, use it, make the decision to be happy!

*Bobby McFerrin 1988