The secret to being happy

As I have alluded to in other posts, happiness is largely a matter of perspective. If you focus only on all the things you don't have or want to have, you might very well be miserable.

If, rather than comparing your lifestyle to that of millionaires driving Ferraris and sporting expensive jewelry, you use the less fortunate as a basis for comparison, you'll feel more grateful for the things you do have and suddenly feel happier about your lot in life.

One mistake people make is relying solely on external sources to be happy--whether it be their jobs, friends, or material possessions. I'm not saying we can't derive any happiness from these -- we all do to some degree.

But in reality, happiness has to come from within. Happiness is by and large subjective. Your idea of happiness might be to go and get wasted every weekend, never get married, and ride around in a Harley. Mine may be to stay at home with my wife watching movies, writing, and reading books. My version is no better or worse than yours.

Don't depend exclusively on other things and people to be happy. Material things depreciate, and we can't take them with us when we die. Other people change and, as such, can't always be depended on. There will always be something unpleasant about our jobs that we wish we could change. In this crazy journey we call life, we are the only ones we can rely upon to be happy. It starts and ends with us.

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