Never Give Up!

When I was younger, one of my favorite quotes was "Success is the best revenge." I have grown up since then. Now, I realize, who needs revenge? And in some cases, who needs success? I just want to be happy. But what is happy?

Can success lead to happiness? I think success (in the conventional sense) can lead to temporary happiness; however, once we have achieved success, we always have to aim for the next highest goal. Success is something we always chase and never catch. So tying our happiness to success means that happiness will always be just around the next corner.

I think acceptance is part of happiness. You have to accept and love yourself and others. If you don't love yourself, no one else is going to be able to love you. And if they do, you will never understand why and just think they must be mistaken. At the same time, you have to be centered enough in yourself to accept and love other people as they are. Everyone is different. Everyone.

I think letting go is part of happiness. The more you try to control things, the more you fail. We simply can't control anything but ourselves. You end up pushing away all the things you can't control, and you end up completely alone. And here is the thing - the stuff that makes us the happiest is usually stuff we can't control anyway. We want to be loved; we can't make people love us. We want to be treated a certain way; when we make people do it, it doesn't give us happiness.

I think humor is part of happiness. "If we couldn't laugh, we'd all go insane." Sometimes the world is so crazy that we just have to laugh at it. We have all done something ludicrous. We have all made mistakes. If we take ourselves so seriously all the time, we would just get bogged down in how dismal everything looks.

I know love is part of happiness. I don't think anyone can be happy without knowing how to love. We have to love those around us, what we do, who we are, where we are, etc. Do what you love, love those you love, and love yourself. Heck, maybe happiness is love.

I think God wants us to be happy. While we are off chasing things that we think will give us happiness, He knows where we should be looking: At Him, ourselves, and each other.


(Stepping off of soap box)
Pam!