Happiness is an Inside Job

I am a firm believer that life is what you make out of it. Every day we have the choice of what to think and what to feel no matter what our circumstances are.

This is why I decided to start sharing in my posts some thoughts and ideas on this subject. I will be using famous quotes from the great minds of humanity which will support the idea behind the subject of each particular post.
The intention behind these posts will be to trigger the imagination of anyone who wants to consciously create positive habits and attitude in their everyday life regardless of the circumstances.

As the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus said:

Image Source

Many years ago I had read a story somewhere in a book - I don't really remember which book it was - but it powerfully illustrates the meaning of the above quote when applied in our lives. The book could possibly be "Positive Thinking" by Vera Peiffer... If anyone recognizes the story, please either confirm me or correct me :)

Here is the story:
One day two people, unknown to each other, started driving to go to their work early in the morning. The first one was living in the east side of the city and working at the west and the second was living in the west and working at the east side. They were both using the same road to work but with opposite directions obviously.
That day, at some point of the road there was a duck crossing the street with her ducklings, something that forced the traffic to stop until they duck's family crosses the street.

When this happened, the first driver of our story started getting angry and upset, shouting, swearing and hitting his hands on the steering wheel saying:

"I will be late for work, I can't believe this is happening to me, where has this #@%@ duck come from - my day is going to be a mess today!!!"

_
When the second driver was forced to stop and saw the duck crossing with her ducklings, he sat comfortably on his driving seat thinking:

"what a beautiful way to start my day, those ducklings are so beautiful and cute - I am so lucky and grateful this happened to me, I am going to have a beautiful day today!!!"

---

The moral of the story

We see the same incident happening at the same time to two different people. Each one of them had a complete different reaction to that same incident, which obviously had a direct effect in their physiology and mood.

This is a great example of what "happiness is an inside job" means.
Every moment we have the choice to react either as the first driver of the story or as the second...
And as Epictetus said, what matters is not what happens to us but the way we react to it!

Food for thought

• What kind of reaction do you usually have in your everyday life circumstances?
• What do you think you need to do to start having a more positive attitude in your life?