You know me as a positive person promoting and writing
good stuff. But can I confess with you?
One morning, while writing and revising my dreams in
my Dream Notebook I felt happy and excited but then tempted to be frustrated. I
was tempted to think that my best life is still a long way off. I’ve got so
many plans and wonder how I can get there?
Thankfully I remembered the reasons why I have dreamed
and wrote them in the first place. One is: To Be Happy!
Poof! Suddenly I realized my best life starts today! I
don’t have to wait for everything to be perfectly straightened out in my family
or with my work, business or for all my problems to be solved. I don’t have to
forgo happiness until I lose weight (okay, in my case until I gain weight),
break an unhealthy habit, or accomplish all my goals. No, God wants me to be
happy right where I am, right now.
Pastor and motivational author and speaker Joel Osteen
said, “Happiness is a choice. When you
get up in the morning, you can choose to be happy and enjoy that day, or you
can choose to be unhappy and go around with a sour attitude. It’s up to you. If
you make the mistake of allowing your circumstances to dictate your happiness,
then you risk missing out on God’s abundant life.”
You may be going
through tough times, all of which give you good reason to be unhappy or upset. But
being unhappy won’t change anything for the better. Being negative and sour isn’t
going to improve anything either. You might as well choose to be happy and
enjoy your life!
Osteen believed that to do so, we must stop
fretting about the future and live one day at a time.
It’s good to have
a big-picture outlook, to set goals, to establish budgets and make plans. I’m
doing these things. But I’m learning to not live in the future because I’ll
never enjoy the present in the way God wants me to.
Learn to enjoy
your family, your friends, your health, your work. Enjoy everything in your
life. “Happiness is a decision you make,
not an emotion you feel.” Certainly there are times in all of our lives
when bad things happen, or things don’t turn out as we had hoped. But that’s
when we must make a decision that we’re going to be happy in spite of our
circumstances.
In one of his
talks, Bo Sanchez said, “In your path towards your happiness, things pop up.
Things block. You know what those things are? LIFE. Life comes up. And you need
to learn how to enjoy every step of the journey.”
Maybe you wish you
were more handsome or more beautiful, more gifted and talented. You may wish
you’d been born with a lot more in your favor. But you can’t let those
superficial things steal your happiness.
Friends, learn to
be happy in spite of your circumstances. Have a grateful attitude.
Choose to be happy! :)
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