Think

"It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about."
Dale Carnegie

We are sure that it is our situation or our circumstances or our possessions that make us happy or unhappy. We think we are happy because we have a more expensive car than our neighbors. We think we are happy because we take longer and better holidays than our friends do. We think we are happy because we live by the sea and are able to go to the beach every day. We think we are happy because we have a good job. We think we are happy because other people admire us. These are the kinds of things that typically define our level of happiness.

But all these things have something in common. We can't really control them. Our money can be taken away, and with it our expensive car and wonderful vacations. We might get laid off from our job and have to move away from the seashore. We will almost certainly find people who disapprove of us. And then where will we be. Most of us will be left feeling terrible.

But we do have control over the real key to happiness. We can control our thoughts. Yes it is difficult but the rewards are huge. We may be a streetsweeper but if we focus on how useful our service is for others then we can be as happy in our job as someone with a prestigious job that has lost its meaning for him. We might even focus on how lucky we are that we have a job at all in this economy.
We may live in a poor neighborhood but be happy because we are glad that we have a house to live in and there is a park down the street for the children to play in.

Perhaps the most significant thing of all is that we don't have to rely on the opinions of other people about us to make us happy. We can realize that there will always be some people who think we're terrific and some who think we're pathetic and others in between. We can realize that how other people view us says much more about them than it does about us. We know how good we are. And that's all that matters.

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