Gratitude Brings Happiness: Not Wealth, Fame Or Accomplishments

Happiness is a moment you create for yourself regardless of your present circumstances.

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Happiness is hardly found or stirred from things. It comes from within a person and it is greatly influenced by a person’s perception about things and life. A man’s view about life and how he/she approaches life greatly influences how happy such a person will be.

We most often connect our happiness to things or the circumstances surrounding our lives and this is one of the reasons why happiness seem very far from some of us. Most of us think that it’s only when we have everything that we need or achieve our goals or dreams that we can be happy. This mindset has caused some of us to pursue things to the extent that we’ve forgotten to spare time for ourselves and the people close to us. We’re so much determined to find happiness in whatever we think can give us such happiness that we willingly ignore every other thing in our lives for that one thing that we think can give us the happiness that we seek.

The sad thing is that, after achieving that one thing or things that we thought would give us happiness, we discovered that the happiness fades the moment the excitement of accomplishing such feat dies down. We couldn’t believe that happiness that we have been pursuing for such a long time would fade so easily, so we try convincing ourselves again that, maybe if we could achieve more, we would get the happiness that would last.

We worked harder and achieved more, but we discovered again that the more we achieved, the farther from us the happiness we seek gets. Not willing to give up on happiness, some of us start connecting our happiness to things other people have that we don’t yet have. We start saying that “maybe if I was married, or if I have a baby, or if I have a raise, promotion, etc. I would be happy”. But we failed to see the people around us that have these things but they still don’t seem to be happy and they are in same pursuit of happiness with us.

One truth about happiness that most of us don’t know yet is that; it resides within us and it is mostly stirred by those little things in life that we ignore in pursuit of the big things we hang our happiness on. Appreciating little things in our lives like waking up, being healthy, having someone to love and be loved in return, being alive, being in a position to render little assistance according to our capacities to others and others doing same to us, having a job regardless of whether we like it or not, having a roof over our heads, etc. is the most effective way to stir the happiness that resides within everyone of us and keep it burning strong.

Appreciating the little things we have in life and life in general, will open our eyes and minds to see how blessed we are and this will stir happiness in our hearts. Happiness is never far from us; it’s indeed very close by, but most of us can never see it because we’ve already attached it to things. And some of us pursue those things with everything that we’ve got and forget to live and enjoy life in the process.

You don’t need all the money or accomplishments in life in order to be happy. If money, fame, power or accomplishments can give lasting happiness, rich men, powerful people and famous people would be the happiest people on earth. But we all know that is not always the case. I’ve seen depressed wealthy, powerful and famous people. These people were not depressed because they were wealthy, powerful or famous; they were depressed because they couldn’t get the happiness that they thought their position, fame, wealth or accomplishment would give to them.

Happiness is in every one of us, but it can only be stirred by finding a reason to be happy. But such reason can only be gotten from a heart of gratitude. When we appreciate life and everything it has given to us, happiness gets stirred in our hearts; and the more we do this, the more we stir such happiness and the happier we live. A man’s moments of happiness is created by him/her through appreciation of life. The more we appreciate life and all it has given to us whether good or bad, the more we stir the happiness we have in our hearts and the happier we become.

Your happiness is within you, stir it by finding something each day to be thankful for regardless of the circumstances and you would find life to be much more enjoyable and interesting.

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