Happiness is a choice. You can either claim it or disown it. Don’t believe me? Try pushing that smile button and keep applying pressure until you begin to feel happy.
Remember those old gas heaters? You had to keep applying pressure until that pilot lit up. You heard several clicks before hearing that rush from the pilot. It was like a sense of relief! At that moment, you felt instant gratification for that heater because you knew warmth was on the way! You were so determined to feel that heat that you wouldn’t stop applying pressure.
In that same way, you must apply pressure to trigger happiness in your life. However, you must understand that happiness is a temporary feeling. No one can be happy all the time because it can immediately be overturned by some unfortunate incident.
Think about a time(s) in your life when you were happy, then suddenly, that one phone call or incident zapped it all away. Well, I can name several. Can I get a witness?
It is nearly impossible to remain happy after hearing disturbing news or being involved in a serious incident. It will certainly take time and spiritual intervention to bounce back. Some instances might take an extended period of time plus therapy. But choosing to remain broken, depressed, or despondent is where you come in.
You cannot change what happened to you, but you can change what you think about. The memory will reappear, especially when idle, but you must change the channel in your mind, just as you do when searching for something interesting or entertaining to watch on television.
Sometimes, you may have to change your environment or objects in your space. For example, I recently removed obituaries of my deceased sister and brother-in-law from my work space because they were conjuring up sad memories way too often. I didn’t realize the damage it was doing to my spirit.
Nevertheless, seeing my sister’s smiling face on my screen saver and thinking of fun times with my brother-in-law make me smile and focus on good memories of them. But this might not affect another individual in the same way. That’s why it is important to do what works for you. Do whatever it takes to recapture that smile over and over again, until you begin to feel happy – even if it’s only for that moment.
And remember…
“Make sense of what you do, and make every cent count.”
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