I have been thinking a lot about happiness lately and happy people in general. The other week, when I stopped at the gas station, I was confronted with the notion that you really can’t predict who is going to be happy in life and who isn’t based on their situation in life. I was thinking about my regular gas station attendant and how he is always upbeat and happy despite having something of an undesirable career to most people. By all means, I am sure if I was in his position, I would certainly be miserable, and this is not meant to offend anyone who themselves works or know of someone who works in such a position, but for me the idea of standing outside, or sometimes sitting in a little glass box, at all hours of the day through extreme heat and bitter cold would be hell on earth. I’m not someone who could handle such a simple, repetitive task, even one as common as pumping gas for eight hours a day, in fact, I am sure I would botch it. Yet, the same gas station attendant is always there waiting for me, happy as can be, glad to be of service.
After that day, whenever I looked around, it was glaringly obvious to me, that many of the happy, outgoing people I would come across were found in the most unlikely places but they all had something in common, they were all making the choice to be happy, friendly, and genuinely nice people. This may not be news to any of you, the fact that we choose to make our own happiness certainly wasn’t news to me, but I find that whenever I am confronted with these sorts of situations it jolts me back into reality and forces me to look inward to my own feelings and why I make things harder on myself by not choosing happiness more often.
I challenge all of you to stop, take a look around you and search out the happiest people in your life. I bet that for the most part these folks aren’t necessarily always the most wealthy, attractive or even healthy people, but still they find happiness because they choose happiness. I hope for myself and for all of you reading this that we can make that choice for ourselves everyday and remember that it’s not our social status, job, friends or significant others that make us happy, but that it is we that make ourselves happy. Today, I am going to be happy, no matter what!