#happiness #contentment #HappinessIsCreated
Most of us would probably say we are happy with the way things are for us.
Some, of course, would say they live one crisis after another. These folks may never see happiness, perhaps because they don’t pursue it. They wait for it to come to them.
But let’s talk about the former group.
Pose this question to yourself: are you HAPPY with the way things are for you, or are you CONTENT with the way things are for you?
Though it’s truly a blessing to be alive, let’s not talk about those who are just happy to be standing upright, or those happy to be on the right side of the dirt.
Let’s focus on those who say they are happy with their lives as a whole. If you are HAPPY with your life, you ALWAYS wear a smile. You have no worries about anything. The sky is never falling. Tomorrow will always be better than today.
If you don’t look at life this way, but feel that, when you balance your ups and downs, that life is OK, you are merely content. If you say to yourself, “I’d really like that, but I’ll settle for this,” you are merely content. If you look forward to your good days, but have occasional bad days, you are merely content.
So let’s take this premise a step further. Once you determine whether you are HAPPY, rather than merely CONTENT, what do you do next if you discover that what you thought was happiness was just contentment?
Chances are there are steps you can take to change your status. It’s not just a mood change, or putting on a façade of happiness. It’s a life change.
Ask yourself whether you are governed by your circumstances, or whether you are governing your circumstances. If it’s the former, what do you do to change to the latter?
To borrow from the song Dusty Springfield made famous, wishing, hoping and praying alone aren’t going to give you what you want.
You have to determine what you want that will make you truly happy. You certainly can live with contentment for a time, but you have to really aim toward happiness. Once you aim toward it, you have to pursue it relentlessly and continuously. That, for some, is the hard part.
You see, contentment may be good enough once some of us realize what it takes to achieve true happiness.
For others, they have the determination to achieve happiness, but need the vehicle that will get them there. If you are one of those, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It’s one of many, and indeed one of the best, vehicles for those who not only know what they want to go from content to happy, but also want to take others on the same journey.
Going from content to happy may not always be easy. However, for some, it could be a simple adjustment in the way one leads a life or uses his time.
For those happy to be content, perhaps now, at least, you may understand the difference between contentment and happiness.
For those who want true happiness, find out what that is for you and do what you need to do. It seems simple, but, for some, it’s very hard.
Remember: happiness is not given. It is created.
Peter