by feline sphynx

Created on: March 31, 2008

I truly believe that everyone wishes to be happy. Yet because happiness it seems is such a personal thing it can mean different things to people.

Firstly we owe it both to ourselves and to others. To our families, friends, employers and to society because happiness spread about makes people more efficient, less accident prone, healthier, more helpful and more pleasant to have around. How many of you reading this have heard that comment "Gosh..you look great when you smile"..or "you ought to smile more often it does you good"? Thats because we DO look more attractive when we smile, and of course happiness is infectious. To spread cheerfulness is a very important thing in this modern day world of ours, if only to distract the gloom and despondency which seems to attack us on all sides through press, media, the internet and of course people, which seem to be able to keep our spirits low. What we have to remember and never forget is that the only person ever responsible for your personal happiness is YOU!

Some may ask "but why does happiness seem to elude me"? Have we ever stopped to see how we are letting our lifestyle dictate to us? Possibly the answer is that we are failing to actually experience happiness and enjoy it because we are too busy worrying about things and people beyond our control, and even events that probably won't happen anyway. We have the capability of allowing our minds to reflect back to times in our past even if there is only one fleeting moment of happiness...we can go back there and remember. This is because we tend to be more readily to assimilate and recall pleasant times rather than tragic ones. How many old soldiers still out there in the world are more likely to remember the close comradeship and those letters from home, than the horror of the war and how everyone suffered? It is because the mind has its own built in mechanism to fight against depression and tries to work at preserving the happiness if we only give it a chance.

We must not try to make our happiness conditional upon the behaviour of another person, child, loved one or friend. If we do then we are not likely to gain the peace of mind we are seeking. We can find happiness and enjoyment and satisfaction in even simple things like doing a job well, baking that apple pie, giving help and comfort to somebody else, enjoying a meal, having a drink, improving our lives and personality. Use any creative gift that we might possess like writing, painting, music, football, swimming,

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