by Nina Alvarez

Created on: March 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

Millions of Americans suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Despite the dazzling array of items and services that promise to make us happy, we just aren't. We've been taught a lot about making it through life financially and how to try to make others happy, but very few of us are taught how to do it for ourselves.

The truth is that nothing outside of you can adequately respond to what you feel you're missing. The nature of life is that it is always changing, and happiness isn't finding things to permanently grasp onto, but learning to appreciate the moment, each moment, as it is. For all of us, there will be loss, failure, and eventually death. Happiness, or better put, "joy," is learning to be with these moments for what they are: a natural part of this journey. As long as you're striving for relationships, food, clothes, even the right job, to fill your emptiness, you will always be disappointed.

It is so important that each of us take our happiness seriously and invest the time required to honestly look inside and to acknowledge and eventually let go of pains and disappointments we may be holding onto. Learning to be joyful can require a lot of support. I have found a lot of wisdom wrapped in entertaining dialog on Hay House radio, an on-line radio station, complete with pod casts of weekly shows by big names in the field of self-actualization like Wayne Dyer and Debbie Ford. Your joy is inextricable linked to your health, your ability to make good decisions, and your capacity to explore your true potential. Happiness isn't a luxury, it is the very core of life that calls to us all.

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