HAPPINESS IS HOMEMADE

On her kitchen wall, my good friend Carmen had a sign that read “Happiness is Homemade.” Since I believe that we all can choose to focus either on the positive elements in an event or we can choose to focus on the negative, that small plaque resonated with me. Homemade suggests working on something, shaping something to fit one’s vision.
To apply that idea to happiness totally blows away the concept that one’s own happiness is dependent on the actions and behavior of another person.
Happiness doesn’t work that way. It isn’t owed to a person. It isn’t dependent on another person. It grows from inside the individual.
When my son and daughter were growing up we had numerous conversations where I would repeat for the hundredth, maybe even thousandth time, that in any situation, there will be some good and some bad. The individual can choose which of the elements he wants to incorporate into his world view, the positive or the negative.
I like to be comfortable. Being happy makes me more comfortable than being miserable and angry.
Of course, that does away with the idea that events are fair or unfair. Events simply are, neither good nor bad. It is our own way of choosing to think about them that adds the emotional element.
I went online recently to find who put the slogan, “Happiness is Homemade” out into the digital ether for the rest of us to enjoy. While I didn’t solve that reference question, I found another group with the motto, “Happiness is a Choice.”
It is a choice.
Regardless of circumstances, regardless of amount of money in the bank, a person’s reaction to events is a choice.
Each day is a gift awaiting our use of it. Each event awaits our reaction to it. Happiness is a choice dependent only on our choosing to feel that way. Happiness is homemade by our own hands, our own spirits.